


Moody Middle-Aged Actor AU

by afra_schatz



Category: The Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: Actor AU, M/M, PWP, Smut, breath play, gratuitous theatre discussions, orlando is a dick, sean is moody, theatre actors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-18 19:45:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10623873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afra_schatz/pseuds/afra_schatz
Summary: This is a collection of all my LotR RPF AU stories called ‘Actor AU’ in which Sean and Orlando work as actors in a London theatre.





	

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There were those days when Sean would come home after work and knew that Orlando once again had invaded his flat. He still hadn't figured out how the little shit managed to get into his house time after time, it was not like he'd given him a key. Hell, he didn't even frigging _invite_ him and yet Orlando was there whenever it pleased him.

Maybe Orlando had turned on his incredibly well acted charm and had gotten Sean's sister to give him her key. Mayhaps he had slept with the janitor. Mayhaps he'd just smashed a window somewhere in the place and came in like every other ordinary burglar. Only that the latter possessed the decency to steal and leave, keep as quiet as possible about it. 

Orlando only did the first of those three things and it bugged Sean to no end that the younger man kept wearing shirts to work he'd stolen from Sean - and no, he didn't fucking care whether Orlando otherwise would've had to walk home half naked some nights because Sean, becoming impatient and a bit nasty, had shredded the other half. 

Sean hated it when he came home and there was way too fucking loud music playing. Stupidly booming death metal of some sorts or that godawful country music. And Sean would grit his teeth and bang his forehead against the heavy door leading to his flat, knowing, just knowing that Orlando on the other side of the thick steel was jumping up and down on his couch headbanging or singing along completely off tune to Dolly Parton. 

Sean smashed the door open, stood in the middle of the entrance, his stance as wide as John Wayne's right before a duel and he bellowed on top of his lungs that Orlando was out of his fucking mind and should better be gone within the next ten seconds or he would bloody well kill him. 

Orlando just looked at him, sitting bare chested on Sean's dining table, held a half empty bottle of red in his hand and his hair was even wilder than usual. Prosaic thump thumping of today's noise of choise thickly flooded around him, enveloping him. 

Sean couldn't think because of the riot or because of the sweat glistering on Orlando's chest and just felt the thick vein on his temple pulsating with irritation. And Orlando laughed. Sean couldn't hear it, really, he just saw Orlando's face splitting into a big grin, saw his naked chest trembling with hard laughter and saw dark eyes fixing him laughing and mocking, daring and pushing, predatory and caring. Sean was trembling all over, fists clenched in an effort to control his anger and desire, to keep them from mixing with one another and become poisonous, didn't move when Orlando hopped of the table and came walking over, idle decadence in every motion. He stopped infront of Sean, took another sip of wine and pressed his lips onto Sean's, forcing the heavy liquid and his tongue down the older man's throat. 

From that moment Sean could do nothing else but try to keep up. Every noise, every move he made was answered instantly by Orlando. Orlando replied every blunt male cadence with a line skip, varied Sean's strict metre by adding free rhythm to it without altering the rhyme scheme. Sean didn't want poetry, didn't want emotions, hell, he didn't even really want the fucking but still got drunk on every word Orlando uttered, on every of his touches. 

They didn't make it to the bedroom, they didn't even manage to close the door to the flat, so Sean could hear his angry and eager grunts echoing down the hall when Orlando yanked his pants down and slammed into him. His head pounded from the too loud music, from his blood rushing in his ears like a bleeding tidal wave and yet he could feel every syllable Orlando whispered into his ear while he fucked him. Closed his eyes. Took it. Sighed quietly with every renewed forceful thrust.

The CD ended and Sean could hear his own quietness now, could hear Orlando's heavy breathing and finally understood the words spoken to him. Orlando's grip on his hips was bruising, his voice hitched when he came and made Sean shoot all over the wall with his last vigorous thrust. 

Orlando whispered 'I love you, I love you' over and over, breathless now, his voice raspy and broken and not at all the usual smooth baritone. And Sean knew it meant everything and nothing, was like mist everywhere and nowhere at the same time, nothing he could fight against, nothing he could get angry at or about, nothing he could stop from surrounding him. Something he accepted in moments like this, losing himself in the fog.

***

"Yesterday my father died."

Sean, waiting in the wings, looked at Orlando. Orlando straightened the waistcoat of his costume, fumbling with one of the upper buttons, and Sean wasn't sure whether he'd heard correctly. But Orlando turned to him, tilted his head to one side as if contemplating something for a second, and then asked, "Come to the funeral with me?"

Sean wasn't sure whether he approved of Orlando's acting skills. Sure, they'd been one of the things that had drawn him to him despite or maybe in addition to the fact that Orlando was about as moody and eccentric as he was himself. But Sean could always tell the difference between work and life and wasn't sure about that when it came to Orlando. Sean, the actor, was the one that could switch from being charming to being petrifying, from being compassionate to despicable. Sean, the man, was the opposite, careful to be a bit stereotypical so he always knew where he ended and his role started. But Orlando? 

Bernard had started reciting again and effortlessly Orlando straightened his back, dropped to his knees and asked for Bernard's daughter's hand most charmingly. Sean frowned and missed his prompt which hadn't happened in, like, forever. 

After work, Sean offered his condolences and felt uncomfortable and clumsy and waited somewhat nervously for an reaction. Orlando shrugged and said 'yeah, well' and that was it. Sean might not be known for acting very sensitive but he was a good observer. But that had been all, a shrug and 'yeah, well'.

The sun was shining on the day of the funeral, and Sean had stuck his hands in his pockets during the ceremony. He'd listened to the summary of a life he hadn't been a part of and watched the son of the deceased gently stroking his mother's arm. The scratching sound of the hoist letting down the coffin brought him back to reality and he wondered if he'd forgotten to have breakfast. Which he hadn't. Still his stomach felt like someone had twisted a rubber band around it. Orlando caught his eye, and Sean only realised that he must've been frowning when Orlando half-smiled at him. Well, fucking figured, his father died and who was being reassured? Sean. For having stomach aches.

Since there was nothing else to do, and he'd found out that the dark look on his face kept people from talking to him, Sean continued looking gloomy during the wake, sipping a cuppa coffee and watching Orlando. Sean wasn't sure why he was here at all because Orlando seemed to be besieged by people seeking steadiness from him, leaving him almost no space to breathe even without having to deal with a difficult fellow actor. He would've thought that he was there because Orlando needed a shoulder to lean on but he figured that Orlando knew better than choosing him of all people for that task. 

Orlando kept up with seemingly superhuman strength. He held his head high and still didn't seem closed off. He clearly had organised this day from scratch and at the same time never seemed too occupied to just be there for everyone. His mother clung to his arm for a while and he hugged her tightly, kissed her forehead and whispered something that made her smile and nod and be able to carry on. 

Sean watched. 

And felt grief and shame and pride running through his veins like electricity. He hated it fiercely that he could identify all three of them as well as their sources all too easily and still wasn't able to switch them off. 

It probably was an instinctive thing to hold the wake at one's own house, but once the folks had arrived there was no way to get rid off them on your terms, was there? Even Sean felt trapped after an hour and could only imagine how it must be for Orlando. All eyes on him, watching him for genuine emotion. Even for a professional actor it had to be unnerving to be under that close an inspection. So Sean was not surprised to find Orlando gone when he returned to the living room after a chat over coffee brands with one of the aunts. Sean however was surprised by how easily it was to find him. His visit to the garden with its tiny pond and a bench right in front of it had been his very first try.

He sat down beside Orlando, his lower arms resting on his thighs, as he turned his head to look at him. Orlando's face was as handsomely even as ever, his eyes as almond shaped, his irises as dark brown. There were two small streaks of silver running down from them, glistening in the dim afternoon light. 

They formed perfectly symmetrical teardrops on both sides of Orlando's jaw that fell down onto his lap with slow continuity. Those dark eyes now fixed on Sean, nothing red in them and completely focused so that it was Sean who after a few moments averted his gaze.

"I was twenty five", he said, "when my father died." 

He looked down onto the tips of his black leather shoes, dusty now from the gravel. 

"I was so fucking furious. Got awfully shitfaced and beat a few people's faces in." From under lowered eyelashes he looked at Orlando again, one corner of his mouth raising a fraction. "Did help a bit."

Tiny silver tears still dropped from Orlando's face but his voice was smooth as silk when he replied, "No shit." 

A hint of a crooked smile appeared on his lips, "That where you got this technique from? You're still practicing it regularly, right?"

Sean chuckled and looked down again before that small smile could vanish from Orlando's features with him having to watch.

After a while Orlando said, "My dad has been sick for a long time. He accepted dying. I think I did, too."

Sean waited for Orlando to continue and only when he didn't immediately, the older man slowly nodded. Thinking that he understood.

"So," Orlando said, "I'm not angry. Just -" 

He sighed, and Sean's heart constricted because this wasn't a sigh that was supposed to stand in for words. It was one replacing breath. No exhaling and inhaling, just that small quiet sigh instead. Sean clenched his jaw until it hurt blessedly and distractingly and moved a little closer so his left knee was lightly touching Orlando's right.

"Just sad." Orlando finished simply.

These two small syllables were possibly the first words Orlando had said to Sean that weren't to some extent shaped, deformed or polished up by Orlando's acting skills that came almost as naturally to the younger man as breathing. Almost. 

Sean wasn't in the habit of trusting people, and he certainly wouldn't confide in someone who could act that threateningly well. But right now he believed in the simplicity of Orlando's grief as well as Orlando's strength without any doubt but with an intensity that should probably have frightened him.

Orlando had picked up a handful of the gravel at their feet and had begun sorting out first the tiny white pebbles, then the black ones, so that only slightly different shades of grey remained. While Sean wondered whether that was to be some metaphorical action, saying deep and meaningful bollocks about the state of the world in general, Orlando didn't even look at his finished work. He closed his hand over the remaining stones and threw them into the pond where they came down like particularly aggressive rain. Then he picked up a fresh handful, starting with black this time. 

Sean watched until about half of the dark pebbles had been exterminated, then he grunted, "That's got to be the stupidest pastime ever."

Orlando looked up at him, his tears having dried on his high cheekbones, and he replied, "Well, we're in public. Can't very well ask you for a blow job instead, can I?"

Sean frowned, then grinned, then shrugged. 

"Bugger."

They returned to their meaningless bantering and their heated shouting matches. They returned to drunken discussions of drama and sober satisfying sex. And Sean knew that to some extent Orlando always acted - to deliberately piss Sean off or to humour him or just because he was able to. Sean always reacted like both he and Orlando knew he would, mostly with passion bordering on aggression, sometimes with a chuckle or a raised eyebrow, more often with the threat of actual bodily harm. 

Sean murdered Alan and Bernard on a daily basis and had to tell himself that it was an act, a bloody act when Orlando in full costume fell to the ground in front of him sobbing and quivering over the loss. The premiere of their latest play was a success, leaving Orlando beaming and sweating after the curtain fell and Sean wanted him so badly he could barely see straight. 

Orlando took Sean home with him that evening, and Sean found himself following like a puppy, something that, once he'd realised it, lead to an outbreak of violence. Orlando didn't mind the bruises Sean left on his body, and the grin he gave the older man after literally being fucked raw came close to shattering Sean. 

Sean dreamed every night. Probably most people did dream a lot more than they remembered the next day, but Sean, he could recall every single dream, every single morning. Usually they were a surreal mixture of unresolved sexual tension, tiny things that had been nagging him over the day and Beckett-like dialogues that made perfect sense to him until he woke up. Sometimes he weaved in things of the outer world, like that time when there'd been construction work going on on his street and in his dreams there was always this godawful annoying noise to be fought against. 

This night he'd dreamed about fucking Orlando and something about being too damn close to some furnace and then the roof seemed to start leaking. He'd tried to repair it but failed for his chest still felt wet and rather grudgingly he woke up to get that problem fixed. 

He hardly ever got stuck in that not-really-sleeping-not-really-awake state of mind and tonight, too, he opened his eyes in the darkness and knew who and where he was. Knew, too, that the immense heat he'd been dreaming of was coming from Orlando's body that was draped half across him, not very different from the position they'd fallen into an exhausted sleep the evening before. His chest was damp right above his heart, right where Orlando's head rested and when he concentrated a little he could feel Orlando's usually deep and calm breaths being shaken slightly by what could only be silent sobs. 

Sean held perfectly still even though inside he was growing restless instantly, and wasn't sure what to do now. He hadn't decided anything yet when Orlando shifted on top of him and did that little displeased grunting sound he did when he fought against waking up. After a moment or two he admitted defeat and, snuffling once, raised his head from Sean's chest. Sean could see fully awake brown eyes looking down at him and those two silver lines, slightly smeared this time, twinkled in the moonlight.

"You're crying." 

Sean frowned a little, at the fact itself as well as at the stupidity of his statement.

Orlando reacted to both, his long lashes blinking an affirmative 'yes' and the right corner of his mouth curving upward almost invisibly.

"Yeah, well", he said and shifted so he came to lie on his back next to Sean. Sean tilted his head and watched Orlando staring at the ceiling for a bit, as if he was searching for an explanation for his tears.

He didn't look at Sean when he finally came to the result.

"My dad died."

Sean scratched his belly, felt uncomfortable. 

"I know."

Again, Orlando took a long time to think about that. There was an accusation at the world in general in Orlando's voice as well as a note of despair that made Sean flinch.

"The sadness doesn't go away. At least not how I planned it to."

"Well", Sean said slowly and propped himself onto one elbow, "It was dense to expect it to, wasn't it?"

"Thanks ever so, genius. I noticed that all by myself," replied Orlando, the irony lingering somewhere between humour and sarcasm. The older man didn't know what he was supposed to say now, so he didn't say anything, just lay there and watched tiny tears dropping down from Orlando's cheeks onto the sheets.

Still, Orlando thought about Sean's rude statement because eventually he said, more to himself than to Sean, "I bloody hate being stuck. I hate standing still. It makes me restless."

Sean shrugged, for the third time in a row not knowing what to say and getting more and more irritated by that. 

"Well, that's life, innit?"

"Don't give me shit like that." 

Unsurprisingly, Orlando reacted to the irritation in Sean's voice instinctively. Before Sean could even contemplate on how to rephrase his sentence to sound a little less arrogant, Orlando shifted again and was towering over him, glaring down at him with dark eyes. He knew exactly that Sean didn't care much for being trapped under someone like he was right now. Made him feel cornered, brought him close to snapping.

"What's that supposed to mean in any case 'that's life'?"

Sean caught fire like the driest tinder and leaned up as best as he could.

"It means that there is no fucking solution to your fucking problem! How am I supposed to be of any help here? Telling you it's all gonna be fine in the end and that it'll stop hurting one day? - Well, it probably won't. Deal with it."

Orlando had stopped crying now. The lines of tears were still visible on his face when he leaned further down, using his body weight and the advantage of his position to give Sean barely an opportunity to move. Predictably, it took Sean about two seconds to find that intolerable and with force he tried to push Orlando off him instantly. 

He growled in annoyance when Orlando wouldn't let him up but instead glared at him as if he was giving Sean some of his own medicine. Truly annoyed now, Sean bent his right leg and pushed up hard, shifting to the left at the same time to get Orlando off him. They fought for the upper hand for long moments, heavy pants turning into angry grunts, naked muscles straining and pressing and rubbing against one another. 

Sean gripped Orlando's slender side hard. When Orlando winced, he pushed up again and to the left, succeeding not only in getting him off but under him now. Orlando cursed him wordlessly, writhed under Sean's body, but couldn't get enough leverage to free himself. Sean had caught both of his legs under his own, pressed his chest down against Orlando's and held his right wrist captive, too. 

Orlando warned him once, snarled that Sean should let him go. When he didn't, Orlando bent his free arm and smashed his elbow against Sean's jaw hard. Sean's head snapped back and he instantly tasted blood. He felt slightly dizzy for a second and loosened his hold, registering that Orlando at once took advantage of that and pushed Sean off of him.

When Sean looked at him from his side of the bed, Orlando said coldly, "Thought I'd test that theory I heard once. Bashing someone's face in is supposed to be therapeutic."

Sean experimentally opened and closed his jaw, moved it from side to side. Nothing broken. He pulled a face at the uncomfortably dull thumping he felt on the right side of his face. He lay his head on the pillow.

"Does it help?" he asked, the coldness of his own voice deliberately mixed with some pretense idleness.

Orlando shrugged, dissatisfied and somehow defeated from one moment to the next. 

"Not really. Only makes my hand hurt."

"Comes from listening to some fool's advice."

"Won't happen again." 

Orlando tested the motion of his fingers with the same care Sean had shown for his jaw previously. For a while they lay side by side in the dark, their heavy breathing the only sound in the otherwise silent room. Tentatively, Sean let his fingertips ghost over his bruised jaw. He regretted it instantly, it had grown quite delicate.He grunted quietly in response to the dull thudding.

"Did I hurt you?" Orlando asked.

"Wasn't that the plan?"

"You're an idiot."

The utter conviction in Orlando's voice was mixed with more than affection. It made Sean smile crookedly and wince in pain at the same time.

"C'me here, let me see that." 

Orlando leaned over Sean, taking his broad chin between his fingers carefully. Sean protested half heartedly but didn't pull away,

"Leave it. I may be an idiot, but I'm not a bloody girl you need to take care of."

"Really?" Orlando said with boredom, "Could've fooled me for you surely fight like one."

Sean rolled his eyes and obediently tilted his head, following the motion of Orlando's hand. 

"If you want me to throw you out, you could simply ask, you know. Trading insults in the middle of the night's sorta dull."

"Can't throw me out, 'tis my place."

Orlando seemed to have finished his examination because he let go of Sean's chin. He placed his hands on Sean's chest and rested his chin on their back, looking up at him.

"Who started it?" he said, his voice finally normal again, "I was all melancholic and you were making fun of me. Not very nice, mate."

Sean pulled his you-might-be-right-but-I-surely-won't-admit-it face. Only when Orlando didn't stop looking at him, he conceded, "Took me by surprise."

Orlando nodded and shrugged as best as he could in his current position but Sean still felt compelled to add, "And I wasn't making fun of you. I just suck at being compassionate."

"You don't say."

"Now, _that's_ making fun of someone."

One corner of Orlando's mouth curled upwards and he repeated, "You don't say..."

"Fuck you." 

Sean slapped Orlando on the back of his head. Orlando reached up to rub through his curls before he shifted again, restless as always, and manhandled an ineffectually protesting Sean onto his side, so he could spoon up behind him. Sean made a few more rude comments about Orlando and how he better not leave other bodily fluids on his skin, so Orlando buried his nose between his shoulders and placed a slobbery kiss right there. 

"I mean it," Sean growled, a bit too tired to sound completely convincing and Orlando's arm around his waist drew him closer still despite the protest. 

Because Orlando knew. Orlando accepted whatever Sean was willing to give - intensity or tenderness or both - because in return he knew how to take from Sean whatever pleased him. Sean knew. 

***

“I think you should have someone paint some picture onto your ceiling,” Orlando said and stared at the white surface above him.

Sean turned his head and looked at the fellow actor next to him on the floor. Orlando’s features showed utter concentration while he tried to imagine said artwork and Sean knew that the younger man was a lightweight when it came to drinking. Hell, the lad only needed so much as walk past an alcohol praline to get tipsy. And the older Brit knew also that he certainly wasn’t the only one responsible for all those empty bottles of wine lined up neatly on the parquet in his living room right now. 

“You’re wasted,” Sean grunted.

“You’re wasteder,” Orlando retorted immediately.

“That’s not even a word, you uneducated, bothersome –,“ Sean searched a moment for a proper insult but Orlando was quicker.

“Philistine?” he offered.

“Aye, that,” Sean said and glared at the ceiling because after Orlando’s idiotic idea, unwelcome colourful shapes started to form there. Really, Sean could see them clearly. 

“Or you could stick a bunch of those glow-in-the-dark stickers onto your ceiling.”

Sean frowned deeply. Orlando was still only a metre away from him and now he had his right arm stretched out, pointing towards the ceiling.

“What a brilliant plan, you brat,” the older actor retorted and shook his head. Not a good idea, since that made the imagined ceiling-paintings swirl and dance in front of his eyes. Orlando, apparently in a better condition to move safely than Sean, rolled onto his belly.

“You know,” he said conversationally and arched his eyebrow while he looked down at the fellow actor. Sean could see his brown eyes narrowing and the darkness in them threatened to pull him in like a maelstrom when he spoke again, “you don’t actually have to end every of your statements with name-calling for emphasising…”

“Y’know,” Sean imitated Orlando’s high handed tone of voice, sarcasm dripping from his words, “if you’d gain a few pounds and wear flowery dresses and grey stockings, you’d be a frighteningly accurate impersonation of Miss Bramish, my primary school teacher.”

Orlando grinned and tiny little laugh lines appeared around his eyes. Laugh lines that were perfect to lick but weren’t allowed to everever be named because Orlando was far too vain to even discuss the possible existence of signs of growing older. Even if it made him all the more handsome. 

“Of course I’d be. I’m a bloody actor,” the younger man said, the conceited tone of voice this time mocking himself. He slumped down half on top of Sean and the older man felt a bit used – as if he was some fucking piece of furniture. He glowered at his abuser but as usually Orlando ignored him completely and mused, 

“Man, I love acting. It’s like fucking. The building up of tension and – “

“The splashing come all over your audience in the last act? Christ, your comparisons suck.”

“You try and come up with better ones after five bottles of wine,” Orlando replied with a well dosed pout, “Go ahead then, Shakespeare.”

Sean shifted a little under Orlando and a frown knitted his brows together as he tried to think. Eventually he said, 

“Glow-in-the-dark stickers on my ceiling sound as appealing as tattooing Christina Aguilera’s face onto my left arse cheek.”

Orlando snickered. 

“Not bad, but I’m sure you can do better. Try again.”

The sound of Orlando’s laughter was something pretty. Whether it was the heartfelt loud snorting one or the quiet giggling. 

“Fucking you is like winning a good brawl in a pub.”

“Because you end up bleeding?”

“No, you little shit,” Sean growled, “because of the satisfaction.”

“And”, Orlando said quietly but triumphantly, “because you secretly like the biting.”

The right corner of Sean’s mouth tugged up without his having a say in it. 

“Aye, that, too. But I can’t admit that, can I?”

Orlando rolled off him. Even though their arms were still touching Sean couldn’t help but think that the younger man was compensating Sean’s last words with the re-established distance. The unusual even if thin layer of truth underneath the banter seemed to strike Orlando as uncommonly uncomfortable as it felt to Sean.

“Why is that that you can’t ever own up to liking something or someone?” 

Orlando nevertheless asked him after a moment and, obviously not expecting an answer from Sean, continued immediately, 

“Let me guess, it’s because –“

“ – I am a moody and emotionally challenged bloke in my midlife crisis?”

Sean sounded slightly annoyed. Not really because what he’d said was a cliché and he didn’t like being labelled. More, because that description felt like a matter of fact. And it almost bugged him that Orlando’s need to point it out showed that the younger man didn’t seem to know him all too well. 

Orlando’s quite impolite grunt dragged Sean out of his musings and from the corner of his eye the older man could see Orlando shaking his head in exasperation.

“I was gonna say because you still picture me as Miss Bramish and have a problem with authority figures.” 

His mouth was close to Sean’s ear now and the older man could feel the heat of his breath ghosting over his skin with every exhale. He could hear the quiet smacking sound when Orlando licked his lips, moistening them like he did it most of the times before he started to speak.

“Wanna know a secret in return?” 

Orlando’s voice was barely above a whisper and his husky tone short-circuited Sean’s brain, forcing him to close his eyes like a good little puppy. He was sure Orlando was close enough to swipe his tongue over his ear without even needing to move but even though he felt a shiver of anticipation running through his body, his wish stayed unfulfilled. Instead of licking his ear Orlando murmured into it, 

“Despite my out-going behaviour I’m really totally insecure and I suppose I’m only with you because deep down inside I don’t think I deserve better.”

Orlando was a good actor and Sean knew that. If he’d wanted to, he could make Sean believe that he was the reincarnation of Lord Byron. So, Sean told himself that the dangerous mixture of hinted emotions in Orlando’s voice had to be put in there with intention. He could detect a quiet seriousness in rounded vowels as well as pitch black sarcasm that made the consonants hard and edgy. But he couldn’t make sense of that – what was the truth this time? Orlando seemed to hold his breath, as if he didn’t even want it to give Sean a hint on how to interpret his words correctly. The older man didn’t move a centimetre but still it felt like he admitted defeat when he asked in a seemingly conversational tone,

“Is that so?”

Sean didn’t know what answer he’d get. What was far worse was that he didn’t know which answer he wanted to hear. For the endless moment it took Orlando to reply, Sean vowed to never ever drink alcohol again. Because of it sickening hope as well as nauseous fear seeped through his rationality unhinderedly. Sean wished throwing up could help as it would with the drink. 

“No, you fucker,” Orlando said with a growl and so much certainty that a shiver ran down Sean’s spine and he instinctively tilted his head to get Orlando closer. The younger man’s voice sounded smooth again when he continued explaining and the friendly irony was back. 

“I just said that because you were whining and I thought pointing that out would make you, like, stop it.”

“Hm. What about ‘alcohol puts forth the truth’ or whatever?” Sean tried him nevertheless.

Orlando drew back a little to look down at the older Brit. 

“That’s like saying that smoking pot really enables you to fly.”

Orlando’s pupils were dilated. They looked right like that, no matter if it came from Orlando being aroused or sloshed. If he looked really, really close, Sean could see himself reflected in the glossy dark of Orlando’s pupils. A tiny image of himself looked down at him, disappeared momentarily when the younger actor’s long lashes fluttered shut. Reappeared instantly.

“That was a neat one,” Sean murmured and had reached out to let his thump stroke over Orlando’s curved eyebrow before he could stop himself.

The brow arched under Sean’s touch.

“What?”

With a dedication Sean knew only someone slightly drunk could bring up he smoothened the furrowed brow again before answering. 

“Neat comparison,” he explained.

Orlando chuckled good-naturedly and leaned down until the tip of his nose was almost touching Sean’s. 

“Thanks. I’m good with words. Told ya so.”

The right corner of Sean’s mouth curled upwards and he made a low rumbling shushing sound, winding his arm around the other man’s slender waist.

“Slow down a tad, prince of poetry. ‘Wasteder’ still isn’t a word.”

“Says the man who could really use an upgraded version of that expression,” Orlando answered and with destructive flippancy he added, “Man, you reckon you have so much experience in _wasting_ your life and are all sorry for yourself after a sip of wine. What a truckload of bullshit.”

Sean hadn’t really moved before Orlando had said this but it felt like his body froze completely after those words. Turned him to ice, they did, and extinguished the warm fuzz of wine in his veins. He would’ve drawn back but Orlando was still lying on top of him, once more cutting of his usual ways of getting out of a situation like this one, a situation too revealing, uncovering, baring. His eyes narrowed and he glared at the younger man.

“Bite me, you obnoxious little prick,” he whispered fiercely against Orlando’s wine-red lips, his jaw cracking from the tenseness of his expression. 

Orlando, too, seemed to freeze in time for a split second. Then he blinked and his long lashes wiped away the competition, the defiance, the threat and still left Sean in the knowledge that once again he was allowed the easy way out.

“With Pleasure,” Orlando purred then, choosing to interpret Sean’s swearing as an offer. And his eyes left Sean’s to slide over the older man’s neck. He licked his lips. Mesmerised by the sudden change of dynamics as well as the intensity of Orlando’s stare Sean just tilted his head a fraction. Orlando’s fingers were a bit cold when they slid under the collar of his black shirt to yank it further aside, exposing Sean’s naked throat.

It was annoying. Having to wear turtle-necked pullovers all the fucking time because Orlando had such sharp teeth. As annoying as Orlando _still_ turning up at his doorstep with cheap wine in the first place. As annoying as Sean happening to finish at the theatre every evening just in time with Orlando. As annoying as – well, Sean really didn’t know why he hadn’t strangled that utterly self-involved, way too beautiful little bastard yet. 

Yeah, right. If he started chanting that inside his head 24/7 mayhaps it would become true and he could ignore the nagging feeling that he actually _liked_ having Orlando around. 

Fucking hell, he really had to be ‘wasteder’, admitting something like that to himself.

He squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his grip on Orlando’s waist. Felt more than heard Orlando’s responding grunt against his bruised skin and groaned quietly when the younger man’s hard erection was pressed against his own. Orlando’s motions, the feeling of his teeth, the grinding of his hips, all spoke of self assurance, efficient enough to re-establish the always fragile balance and – Sean buried his nose in the crook of Orlando’s neck and inhaled deeply while his body bucked against Orlando’s – and shift it the littlest bit. 

Towards something that might’ve frightened the shit out of Sean if he’d still been able to think at all.

***

“This is just perfect,” Sean leaned back in his chair, his pint comfortably resting on his chest and exhaled in an obvious sign of contentment.

“Perfect? I didn’t know you were capable of saying that word, Sean,” Liv mocked and gestured the waiter for a refill of her wine.

“Oh, I heard him say it before,” Alan contradicted her only to add with a lopsided smile, “but usually only when preceded by ‘I am…’.” 

“All right, all right, it’s not perfect.” Sean gave back, “Cause you two are taking the piss since you know I’m too lazy to beat you up right now. So, do me a favour, have a drink on me and shut up.”

“What you’re saying,” Bernard said, his eyes gleaming with more mischief than a man of his age should have in him, “is that it would be perfect if we weren’t around? Shall we leave you to yourself then?”

“Nah,” Sean shook his head, “Not all of you. Lando can stay. He doesn’t take pleasure in pestering me, do you, little one?” 

He reached out to ruffle Orlando’s short curls as if he was petting his favourite dog.

Orlando didn’t even look up from the book he was reading but lifted his right hand, gave Sean a two finger salute and threw out a disinterested, “Woof.”

“Aw, now look at that,” Emma said with her I-make-funny-noises-whenever-I-see-a-baby-or-something-equally-adorable voice and Bernard asked with well faked interest, “Say, is he house-trained as well?”

“Aye,” Sean chuckled.

“Nope,” Orlando chirped at the same time and looked up in time to see Sean’s eyebrows meeting his hairline. “C’me on, Sean, that palm tree in your living room is far too tempting to be ignored, isn’t it?”

“If it withers and dies, you’re gonna buy me a new one,” Sean replied calmly.

“It don’t fit with the rest of your flat anyway. I’m gonna get you a cactus. Much easier to handle.”

“Alright, whatever.” 

Sean looked over the rim of his pint and found their colleagues looking back and forth between them.

“What?” he grunted.

Bernard shook his head but didn’t get that shit eating grin off his face and Liv said with a chuckle,

”You two? Totally old married couple.”

Thanks to her quick reflexes Orlando’s book missed her because she ducked in time when he threw it.

“Who are you calling ‘old’, huh?”

“Christ, Lando,” Emma shook her head, “Sean might lose his crown as the King of Vanity to you in no time.”

“If the world was a little less material and superficial I’d brag with using my wit rather than my beauty. As it is I have a hard enough time to make the idiots around me _see_ me, that thick they all are.“ 

“Ah, and listen to that very Bean-like cynicism, too.”

“Actually,” Orlando contradicted Alan, his voice suddenly mellow, more distinctive, “that’s sarcasm rather than cynicism.”

“Really?” Liv asked with a grin, apparently not sensing what Sean was picking up and what made the hairs on his arms stand up, “Care to elaborate?”

“The difference,” Sean heard himself say before he could clap his hand over his own stupid mouth. Everyone looked at him when he hesitated however and he had to go on. Putting his glass onto the table he did just that, “is that a cynic is so far gone that he thinks everything in the world is doomed to fail aside from him, who – so he foolishly believes – stands above everything. You do give a shit about the world when being sarcastic.”

Liv’s full lips stayed slightly parted as they did when she was lost in thought and she nodded slowly. Bernard however was not in the mood for philosophical discussions of etymology and flipped Sean a bird, making Alan and Emma grin. 

Sean didn’t really pay attention anyhow because Orlando was not smiling but fixed him with a dark glare. For a second the older Brit wondered whether his explanation was that stupid but, it wasn’t and Orlando looked more like Sean had stolen scientific research results and published them under his own name.

There were a few more of those encounters over the next few weeks, sometimes with their colleagues present, sometimes when they were alone. One moment they were joking around and the next Orlando would suddenly close up, his eyes darkening in the non-pleasant kind of way and Sean was so confused he didn’t even know what had hit him before it was already too late to ask.

They left the theatre together late one night as both their flats were within walking distance. Once outside Orlando gave up the pretence of enjoying himself – Bernard had been teasing him about the always evident sarcasm again. Once more Sean didn’t know what had set Orlando off and in silence they walked through one of the deserted streets close to the docks. One or two cats, dark shadows in the night, passed them and the air smelled of brackish water. After half of the way was spent in tense silence he finally asked him. 

“What is it?”

“Piss off, Sean,” was Orlando’s reply and the gruffness in his tone annoyed Sean but also made him ask again.

“What is it, lad?”

“Something wrong with your ears, Sean?” Orlando snapped and glared at him, “Cause I recall telling you to fucking leave me alone.”

They had halted abruptly in the middle of the narrow street and despite the darkness Sean could see the blazes in Orlando’s eyes, ready to scorch right through him. All they did however was set something inside him on fire and, like an idiotic moth drawn to the light, he couldn’t help but step closer and growl back.

“You just aiming for a stupid argument so the fucking will be a little rougher?” He tilted his head to one side and his lips curled into a sneer, “Can’t you just politely ask for it like a normal person?”

Orlando was quick and Orlando was strong and Sean probably wouldn’t have stood a chance at this moment even if he’d paid a little closer attention to the younger man. As it were, he could only so much as blink in surprise when Orlando shoved his shoulder hard and he half spun around from the force of the touch when the younger actor grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back.

“Oh fine, we’re finally on the same wavelength here,” he heard Orlando say behind him. Bitterness was dripping from his lips like tar and when Sean attempted to pull away Orlando just twisted his arm a little more. Ignoring the older man’s quiet hiss of discomfort he pushed him against the nearest wall and added harshly, “I’m so glad that it’s so simple with you.”

Sean would rather have bitten his tongue off than admit that in a way Orlando was right. It was indeed that simple – having Orlando’s lean body pressing against his back, feeling his erection against the back of his thigh – it was damn distracting. No matter that his arm hurt, no matter that they were right in the middle of the docks, no matter that he dimly remembered being royally pissed off only seconds before. Now all his thoughts seemed to be dulled by a sticky, honey flavoured covering of lust. 

It made his attempt to fight Orlando off more than half hearted. Though he knew perfectly well when he could’ve freed himself from Orlando’s vice-like grip – the younger man never paid attention in the seconds it took him to yank Sean’s jeans down, roll a condom on – he didn’t. He still growled with annoyance but more because he was angry with himself for being so bloody one-track-minded and reflecting this back onto Orlando. He turned his head to look over his shoulder the moment he heard Orlando spit into his palm.

“You have me all figured out, don’t you?” he snarled and winced when Orlando tightened his grip on his wrist, pushing his arm even higher. “That I’m no fucking philanthropic tree-hugger doesn’t mean that I don’t care about anything, you little shit.”

_’Care too much about you for example’_ his brain added automatically but the pain pulsing in his shoulder gave him enough to focus on to keep his mouth shut. Both of them tended to groan meaningless endearments and declarations of nonsense to each other when they were just far gone enough for neither one to notice the other but, this was too true to be said out loud. For a moment Sean struggled earnestly against Orlando’s hold on him because he realised how close he’d actually been to confessing. 

Orlando misinterpreted the unspoken protest and seemed to hesitate in his actions for a moment. Once again Sean silently cursed his body when it grew still instinctively, only so it wouldn’t lose contact with Orlando, only so it would get what it craved. Sean bit down on his bottom lip hard when the thick head of Orlando’s cock pressed against his unprepared opening, breaching him with blunt force. 

But it wasn’t the pain he was trying to keep inside him, it wasn’t that admission of defeat he so fiercely fought against right now.

“Having you figured out?” Orlando repeated, this time the bitterness sounded parched because of the lack of air. Sean could feel his irresolution, sensed him wavering for a second, momentarily caught in the swamp of sexual sensations. He winced again when Orlando shoved in hard and once more tightened his grip around Sean’s wrist as if the older actor’s pain gave him something to focus on.

“That’s so typical,” Orlando spat out with effort, “Who else could this be about if not _you_?” 

So Sean was the one to blame and yet they weren’t talking about him? His mind objected to the irrationality of that logic while his body still protested against being invaded with such force. For long moments he just concentrated on breathing, acting techniques kicking in even when his system was mashed up by a flood of pain and pleasure. He ignored Orlando’s hard thrusts that gave him barely enough time to adjust, ignored the dizziness threatening to suck him in like quicksand. 

Just inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled. 

He only let go when he knew he was remotely himself again. The rough material of his trousers cut into his thighs with every renewed thrust of Orlando’s hips that shoved his legs further apart. He brought his free hand up to brace himself against the wall, and pushed back to meet the younger man’s vigour. 

Orlando’s pace was still angry and violent but here their communication worked as flawlessly as ever. Sean felt the ugly tension vanishing from Orlando’s body and his twisted arm was set free the instant Orlando sensed that he didn’t have to remain in control for both of them any longer. His thrusts became more fluent as Sean moved with him and the older man could feel the weight of the other man’s head against his shoulder. Heard him chanting, needed a moment to process the words through the speech centre of his brain.

“I’m not you,” Orlando hissed, “I’m not you,” over and over and Sean knew that Orlando didn’t mean to say that out loud, didn’t want him to hear it.

“Yeah,” Sean heard himself say quietly, “I know that.”

Orlando stopped chanting, raised his head from Sean’s shoulder and lost his rhythm for a moment.

“I know,” Sean repeated once more before Orlando found his pace again and the slightly changed angle made Sean see stars and lose his voice. 

They came without exchanging another word, low groans and hisses replacing language. 

In the moment right after climaxing Sean closed his eyes and wished that it would stay that way, that the complexity of his mind wouldn’t come back, that he wouldn’t have to deal with the cryptic thoughts of the man still pulsing inside him. That he could just continue feeling him like this, letting him be close. 

But they pulled apart eventually leaving Sean with that blasted feeling of rawness and emptiness. He was busy fastening up his trousers when Orlando repeated his earlier words.

“I’m not you,” he said.

Sean looked up from his fumbling hands, more than a little surprised.

“I know that,” he nodded and pretended to be concentrating on straightening his clothes again.

“But I sometimes don’t,” Orlando’s smooth voice replied. When Sean had finished and could bear to look at Orlando again he found the younger man staring at the dark night sky, one hand buried in the pocket of his trousers. He’d lit two cigarettes and handed Sean one of them. They walked, reaching the riverside eventually, and Orlando picked up where he’d stopped. 

“I sometimes feel like this Scott bloke setting out to discover the South Pole only to find in the end a flag there, saying ‘Bean has already covered that’. _‘That’_ in this case being rudeness, attitude, moodiness and general sarcasm, which doesn’t help matters at all.”

Sean chuckled softly and exhaled smoke through his nose.

”But that’s bullshit,” Orlando stated as they continued walking down the street, “I haven’t changed a bit since I’ve met you. I’ve always been like this.”

Sean took a last drag of his cigarette before he flipped the still gleaming stump into the river.

“But finding out,” Sean said, “that there’s a second version of the Mona Lisa doesn’t make her so special anymore, yeah?”

Orlando snorted loudly and lit another fag with his old one before discarding the latter’s remains as well. His fine lips stretched around the filter of the new when he smirked.

“Did you just compare us to a painting of a woman?” he asked with mock indignation.

Sean’s mouth curled up a little and he buried his hands in the pockets of his jeans, his left elbow brushing against Orlando’s arm.

“Enigmatic smile, adored by millions?” he retorted lackadaisically.

Again that snort.

“Hello?! Butt ugly. And besides: fucking female.”

“Alright, you have a point there,” Sean admitted with a grin, “I’d miss my cock.”

“Great,” the softness of Orlando’s humour made an interesting mixture with the harshness of the cigarette smoke, “Now this conversation isn’t about either one of us anymore but about your dick.” 

“C’me on, you didn’t let me finish there,” Sean replied with the same friendly familiarity, “I was gonna add that I’d grieve for _your_ cock, too.” 

“Jeez, despite the Mona-Lisa-sisterhood we’ve established,” Orlando said, “I sincerely hope I’m not also as hopelessly crap at romantic stuff as you obviously are.” 

Sean looked over at Orlando, the cigarette loosely dangling between two of his elegant fingers as he walked beside him with natural grace and yet, despite the almost flawless statement of flippancy in every of his motions, Sean could see the hardness of his features. 

Stubbornness and arrogance, if you wanted to put it pejoratively. Determination and assertiveness if you knew better. 

Looking at Orlando was like looking into a mirror. Uncomplicated self-confidence, as well as an even sometimes revolting scepticism, gazed back. No wonder he was constantly torn between wanting to smile and wanting to smash the stupid reflection into tiny little pieces so he wouldn’t have to stare at it any longer. At that paradox of perfection and restiveness.

“Don’t worry. I prefer your filthy mouth anyway,” Sean eventually replied, once more settling for the smile.

“And again with the sentimentalism, Sean,” Orlando answered, as he let his shoulder touch Sean’s in a gentle shove and smiled back, “Your place or mine?”

 

***

“Sean, what the fuck are you doing here?”

The door had opened abruptly and Orlando almost ran into him, uttering a little yelping sound of surprise while he did so.

Sean glared at the door, irrationally angry with it for having opened after all. He’d been standing in front of it for the last five minutes, staring at it almost as if he wanted it to vanish into thin air. ‘Almost’, because if he really wanted the fucking door to open, he’d have knocked about seven times up till now, wouldn’t he? But he hadn’t and he didn’t _want_ to be here either. At least that’s what he had told himself while his feet had carried him to Orlando’s flat with purposeful strides.

Finally, remembering Orlando’s question, Sean shrugged.

“Thought I’d pay you a visit,” he said and when Orlando merely arched an eyebrow at that he added, “don’t worry, I’m not contagious or anything.”

Orlando stood back and even pushed the door open a little further, so Sean could come in.

“I wasn’t worried. But doesn’t ‘house call’ usually mean that the patient gets visited and not the other way round?”

“Smartarse,” Sean said and put an overdose of self-pity into his voice when he continued, “but since no one is visiting me even though I was close to dying…” 

He let his voice trail off dramatically but Orlando only snorted and elbowed him as he walked past him.

“Yeah, right. Given the fact that you’re a bastard to handle even when you’re completely healthy,” he replied and shrugged off his coat, obviously having spontaneously changed his plans to leave the flat, “it’s no wonder that everyone assumes you’re the pest when you have a cold and stays away.”

‘Everyone’, Sean mused, was dead right with their guess because he didn’t even like his own company very much when he was ill. And the last couple of days had indeed been shit awful. Even though, technically, he really hadn’t been sick. 

Shaking him out of his musings Orlando tossed him something he’d just fished out of the back pocket of his jeans.

”What’s that?” Sean asked even before he’d turned the small square package around to investigate.

“Instant chicken soup of course,” Orlando shook his head as if it was obvious that the only thing he carried around in his pockets was liquid food, “it’s supposed to help with a cold, it is.”

Sean eyed the little package sceptically. _‘Quick and delicious’_ the text promised, and the image on the front showed a steaming mug of soup, ready to be eaten. Also, the wrapping looked quite tattered, Sean noticed, as if it had been carried around in the back pocket of Orlando’s trousers for quite a bit now. 

He must’ve stared at that curious bit of affection for a little too long because Orlando stepped up and tugged at the corner of the soup next thing.

“For heaven’s sake,” the younger man sighed with mock exasperation and walked over to the kitchenette on the other end of the rather large room, “don’t tell me you never made soup before. There, sit down. I’ll prepare it for you.”

Sean felt a bit like he was six again and had stumbled on the playground, bruising both of his knees, and had been sent to the school nurse. The fact that he hadn’t really bruised his legs or, to drop the metaphor, didn’t really deserve any soup for he hadn’t had a cold in the first place, made him feel guilty enough to sit down without bitching about it beforehand.

He really wished that chicken soup would help. He had his doubts on its efficiency when it came to serious colds but he was sure that a cup of instant food didn’t enable you to look into the mirror without being sick. 

“It’s hot, don’t spill it.” 

Orlando pushed a red mug in Sean’s hands, and he’d turned around again before the older man could direct his scowl at him. The soup was steaming and Sean indeed knew better than to try and sip it already. Pulling his feet up onto the couch he held the mug in his right hand and while Orlando cleaned up his little kitchen Sean picked up one of the many books scattered on the coffee table. 

He usually liked being on his own – at least he was in good company then, he firmly believed. His sister had once said that if he didn’t put so much effort into acting like a self obsessed bastard whenever people were around he wouldn’t think their company half as strenuous as he did. And maybe she was right in a way. Still, when he was alone he didn’t need to be purposefully nice _or_ purposefully offensive but could just _be_ for a while, watching telly, reading, doing whatever ordinary thing he felt like. 

However, it had been something different entirely for the last few days. He had barely been able to tolerate his own presence and he’d see-sawed between feeling crowded and unbearably empty. As a result he hadn’t been able to sleep at night without half a bottle of Laphroaig. In the end the lack of rest and peace of mind had made him trash a good deal of glass and whatever else fragile that had happened to be within range in his flat before he’d fled the scenery. 

“Is it any good?” 

Orlando gestured at the book in the older Brit’s hand. He flopped down on the couch next to Sean who had to jerk his feet away to keep them from being buried under the younger man’s butt. 

“Dunno,” Sean said, “just looking at the pictures.”

Orlando peeked over the rim of the book and Sean, too, his mind having been elsewhere, looked at it. An ancient collection of fairy-tales.

“You’re a very weird person, you know that?” Orlando stated as if that realisation struck him for the very first time. Then as an afterthought he added, “It’s been rather boring in the theatre without you the last couple of days.”

Sean looked up but Orlando’s gaze wasn’t directed at him. Instead he seemed to fix it on the empty television screen, making sure not to look at the older actor. 

Sean had caught Orlando staring at him repeatedly the days before he called in sick and the expression on the younger actor’s face had made his stomach turn. Worry and, what was even worse, pity. The way you looked at your parents when they got older, when some of the stuff they did didn’t really make sense and you finally had to realise that they were slowly but steadily falling apart. Sean hated that look something fierce.

When the older actor didn’t reply to Orlando’s observation on the ‘theatre sans Sean’ the dark haired Brit finally did turn his head to look at him. Traces of the worry were still recognisable in his eyes but that other emotion was gone. Orlando grinned, hiding something that felt like relief behind his lopsided smirk.

“But now you got your chicken soup and are all better. My, I should’ve become a doctor.”

He patted Sean’s sock clad foot in well acted self-satisfaction and Sean couldn’t help but chuckle.

“If your sole secret healing potion is instant chicken soup, I wouldn’t be too sure about your success.” 

“The secret,” Orlando leaned a little closer and whispered, “is carrying the soup around in your trousers for a few days.” 

“You’re an idiot.”

“And you’re –,“ Orlando stopped, obviously at a loss of words.

“Yes?” Sean prompted.

“Ah, I don’t know, just pick some random insult and leave me alone.”

Orlando stuck out his tongue for good measure and switched the telly on, idly flipping through the channels until he settled for ‘Mythbusters’. 

Sean got bored quickly, as he usually did. He didn’t notice his mind drifting off while he was still staring at the TV screen, but every time Orlando chuckled softly, Sean realised he wasn’t in on the joke. He shifted a little and pushed his sock clad feet under Orlando’s left thigh for warmth, which earned him a low growl before the younger man returned to his programme. 

When it was over Orlando left the telly on, prepared some of the frozen stuff he seemed to have in his freezer in endless quantities and handed Sean a plate with Paella. But instead of taking up his place next to the older Brit again he sat down right in the middle of the room, opposite to some cardboard boxes. 

Orlando’s flat was quite similar to Sean’s in a way and Sean liked that. The sparse interior and the rawness of the simple wooden shelves and the rest of the furniture prohibited it from being as uncomfortably cosy as most. Though he’d never ask Sean knew that there were some things of sentimental value, so to speak, but they were just as simply ‘there’ as the rest of the flat, not pretentiously arranged like religious relics. 

Right now, though, Orlando sat cross legged on his floor and took one book after the other out of those boxes and handled them like he was some loony old bookshop keeper with a woollen cardigan and a fat cat as his only friend. Sean could see that none of the books’ covers were dusty but Orlando’s hands brushed over them nevertheless before putting them down on one of the crooked piles surrounding him. 

Truth be told Sean hadn’t a clue what Orlando was doing or why he was doing it but he didn’t ask. He just started sipping the beer that came with the Paella and continued watching the piles grow in height. 

Eventually Orlando grunted quietly, obviously displeased, and turned his latest finding around for the nth time.

“What is it?” Sean heard himself asking.

“Book about Elizabethan theatre – on the Shakespeare pile or history of the 17th century?” Orlando looked over his shoulder to Sean.

“Shakespeare,” Sean said spontaneously and added, “what are you doing there anyway?”

“Painting my toenails pink so you’d be tempted to lick them,” Orlando gave back, carefully placing the book in question onto a rather shaky looking pile and moving to the next book.

Sean rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything in return. Instead he started slurping his beer, making as much noise as possible. He grinned innocently when after a few gulps Orlando turned again to glare at him. It was the younger man’s turn to roll his eyes, although he couldn't help but smile and eventually he explained,

“My mum’s moving into a smaller place now that she’s alone. I’m supposed to find a new loving home for Dad’s books.”

“Oh,” Sean said with mild irony, reacting to Orlando’s odd choice of words, “and so you just decided to keep them?”

Orlando gave him the middle finger.

“Well, can’t have some stranger rummaging about if there’s the possibility that there’re diaries among them. Revealing secrets about my family’s past that could threaten my career.”

“What kind of secrets would that be then?”

“If I’d tell you they wouldn’t be secrets anymore, would they, Sean?”

Sean didn’t reply and Orlando quickly lost interest in bantering and returned his attention to the television screen. Sean only noticed that there was now a whodunnit on telly when Orlando, in addition to eating Paella and sorting books, started commenting the possible plot development and sometimes looked over to Sean as if seeking affirmation. 

Sean probably should’ve gotten a headache merely from watching Orlando. Wasn’t this the same impatience he possessed himself, the one that always had him on the edge of sanity at the best of times? Shouldn’t that restlessness drive him bonkers especially now when he couldn’t even bring himself to like his own company?

He found himself staring, smiling even more when Orlando added throwing jelly babies in the general direction of the TV set because the detective inspector was portrayed by “a stupid prick who can’t act for shit”. 

Sean leaned back on the couch, head propped up on the arm rest and kept watching, easy contentedness seeping into his system like long needed sleep.

Sleep.

Sean heard Orlando switching the telly off and dimly noticed a blanket covering him. But drifting between sleep and wakefulness it took him what could have been a second or an hour to open his eyes. 

It was dark in the living room and it was quiet. When Sean’s eyes had gotten used to the murky light he could see that most of the books had found a place on the shelf next to the kitchenette and that aside from a pair of trainers in the middle of the room there was no trace of the younger actor. 

Rubbing his face with his palms Sean got up, briefly contemplated going home but his feet carried him towards Orlando’s bedroom. The light was slightly better thanks to the moon shining through the open window but nevertheless Sean halted in the doorway, his eyes adjusting and taking in the view. 

Orlando lay sprawled out in the middle of the bed, his lithe form taking up almost the entire space. He had fallen asleep on his back like a sated predator in the savannah. And even in this relaxed state his muscles looked like they were carved in marble, his short curls sprawling over the pillow around his head like a mane. 

Sean had been well aware already that Orlando was beautiful, wasn’t really surprised at seeing that beauty so openly on display for him. What made him halt and smile wasn’t that. 

It was the fact that Orlando was completely unclothed save his underwear and his right hand disappeared in his boxers. Apparently he had fallen asleep right in the middle of wanking. So bloody typical. 

The smile on Sean’s lips threatened to split his face in two and his body shook with silent laughter. It seemed a quick and completely harmless whim at first but it sweetly back stabbed him. 

Orlando always seemed so in control, even in his moments of passionate anger or well dosed goofiness Sean was sure the younger man always knew exactly what he was doing and how other people reacted to it. Even now when he was fast asleep Sean felt enthralled by this mixture of tantalising beauty and dorky cuteness. 

Quietly he undressed and without waking the younger man he knelt at the foot of the bed between Orlando’s legs. Orlando didn’t show any visible reaction when Sean reached out and let his palms ghost ever so lightly over his shins and his knees. Only when they reached the inside of his thighs did the younger man sigh softly in his sleep and spread his legs a little wider. Self assured and trusting even in his sleep. Sean could feel the little hairs on Orlando’s thighs stand to attention when he repeated the light touch. 

The corner of his mouth tugged upwards when he saw Orlando’s hand slowly taking up motion again. There was no real rhythm to the touch yet but it nevertheless made Sean’s own cock twitch in response. 

Sean leaned forward and kissed Orlando’s wrist right where it disappeared inside the boxers and when he flicked his tongue over the strong radius the younger man’s hand fell still for a moment, savouring the touch. Sean reached up and gently closed his hand around Orlando’s wrist, slowly guiding it towards a rhythmical motion again. Orlando purred quietly and continued stroking himself even when Sean had already turned his attention to his belly button.

Underneath the dry smoothness of freshly washed skin the older man could still taste Orlando. Lapping at the tender skin covering hard abdominal muscles Sean inhaled deeply as one would with a good rich wine and just like that felt drunk for a moment. In a sudden rush of urgency coming with this his hands gripped Orlando’s slender waist possessively and he inhaled again and rubbed his cheek against Orlando’s belly. Impregnating the younger man’s scent into his own skin. Orlando still didn’t wake but arched up to meet the harder touch and moaned responsively when his skin was scratched by the stubble on Sean’s chin. 

Orlando cursed, a mumble barely understandable, when Sean let his teeth scratch over one already erect nipple. And because he was still asleep Sean took pity on him and didn’t start a teasing torture. 

He shifted a little, covering Orlando’s body with his own and when their chests touched he could feel Orlando’s hand stop again. As if it took his subconsciousness all its concentration to deal with the sensation of their skin touching the younger man grew still for a moment. He sighed quietly and arched his neck to the left in an invitation for Sean to rest his head where Orlando’s neck met his shoulder. And again, Sean felt his heart constrict at the small gesture and the rush of protectiveness it evoked in him. 

He bent down and kissed the vulnerable spot tenderly, his rumbling purr encouraging Orlando to start stroking himself again. Sean closed his eyes when Orlando’s arm brushed against his own erection and only then did he notice how hard he was, how aching simply being close to Orlando had made him. 

The tip of his tongue flicked over Orlando’s pointy earlobe and Sean couldn’t hold back a groan when Orlando pressed up against him, his hand between their bodies moving faster now. Sean licked along the shell of the younger man’s ear, traced all its curves and soft lines and earned breathless whimpers for each swipe of his tongue. Finally he stabbed its tip inside, wriggling a little. Orlando gasped as if being penetrated and his entire body shuddered underneath Sean. 

His quivering worked like an electric current that ran through Sean’s veins with numbing power. He hugged Orlando tightly and repeated the ever so small flick of his tongue but Orlando didn’t gasp again, didn’t groan. He only whimpered quietly and tilted his head a little further, trusting Sean to guide him through the onslaught of sensations. So innocent and knowing. 

Sean was too aroused to really comprehend his own thoughts but all the stronger determination flooded through him. _Hold onto this. Don’t let go. This is the one port in the storm you believe in._ Realisation that culminated in one single word.

“Mine,” Sean growled.

Orlando grew stiff and the way he sucked in air through his nose indicated that he was just about to come. But instead of giving in the young man opened his eyes and focused sharply on Sean. His pupils were dilated like a cat’s transfixing prey in the night. With his free hand Orlando grabbed Sean’s neck and he pulled the older man’s head down so their lips almost touched.

“Mine,” Orlando growled back.

Sean inhaled at that declaration but the air was sucked out of his lungs with a fierce kiss. Sean could still hear Orlando’s voice echoing inside his head when the younger man’s body tensed for a second time. The grip on his neck tightened almost painfully and Orlando came with a low and never ending groan. 

But the urgency behind his kiss didn’t seem to fade when thick fluid had splashed between their bodies. Bitlinglickingsucking Sean’s tongue Orlando let go of his own spent cock to wrap his slick and warm hand around the older man’s erection. His strokes were hard and steady, yet filled with a neediness as if not his own climax but only Sean’s could bring Orlando fulfilment. Sean was pulled under, took Orlando with him. He couldn’t tell whose groan it was that resonated inside him when his orgasm hit and he covered Orlando’s fist with his come.

He grunted when Orlando finally released him and let himself be pushed off the younger man’s body. On their backs they lay panting quietly, glad that only their thighs were lightly touching now for anything more would’ve been too much to handle. Sean waited patiently – with no concept of time it was an easy thing – waited until the world had stopped spinning and he stopped feeling the need to inhale the universe and Orlando to quench the post orgasmic thirst inside him. Damn orgasms and their bloody ability to make you feel lost and in touch with everything at the same time.

“I wasn’t ill,” Sean said suddenly and he was equally surprised at the sound of his voice after minutes of silence and at his choice of confession. Orlando shifted only a little beside him. Sean’s voice seemed to have brought the world back to him, too, and he fished a cloth from beside the bed to clean them both. 

“Guessed as much,” he said simply while he carefully wiped his hand clean from the drying remains of their mixed semen.

“Hm,” grunted Sean and held still when a still unstained corner of cloth cleaned his belly. Orlando looked up at him, shortly and only just interrupting his task while he did so, concern carefully kept out of his voice.

“Just needed a bit of alone time then?”

Maybe Sean should shrug, say ‘aye’ and leave it at that.

“No,” he said.

Maybe ‘aye’ was just as true. Maybe it was just that. If he told it to himself often enough it might become true. After all, how could you explain that you smashed your bathroom mirror because you just couldn’t bear to look at yourself? How could you without sounding like sentimentalism personified? 

“Acting,” Sean said and again he didn’t know where that came from, that need to explain the words he chose, “I’ve never wanted to do anything else. It’s who I am.” 

Orlando tossed the used cloth off the bed and snatched one of the pillows Sean, up until then, had monopolised. He grinned when Sean scowled at him but didn’t say anything. Sean wasn’t stupid. He knew there was opportunity No. 3462 given to him to back out if he wanted to. To slap Orlando’s arse and snatch his pillow back, fight for it for a little while and ignore the heaviness of his own words. 

Maybe if he told it to himself often enough then he wouldn’t _want_ to go on talking either. Maybe he could continue to squeeze his eyes shut whenever the faceless monster turned up and hide under the bed until it went away. Maybe some day it would even work.

“Not being able to act,” he said, “even for the shortest of spans of time – it’s like I’m bloody paralysed. Trapped in myself,” he rubbed the bridge of his nose with the back of his thumb, “Guess I’m just overworked.”

“Rehearsing has been a bit hard on us,” Orlando nodded, responding easily to Sean’s last sentence. Tentatively he added, “But I thought you liked your character in this?”

“Aye, I do,” Sean replied, for once an answer that was easy enough. “I do. Wouldn’t mind being trapped in _him_.”

For he might be fictional but at least he was better company than Sean bloody Bean who was such a good actor mainly because he couldn’t stand being himself for a longer period of time.

“Yeah, I get that,” Orlando said, his voice smooth and a little wondering, “Not being able to act, it’s like the fever, isn’t it? You curse it for crashing in at the very worst of times and for being so pesky and bloody sickening. But it’s just your body telling you to slow down to get healthy again. Become yourself once more.”

Sean turned his head but Orlando didn’t look back at him. His handsome profile stared at the ceiling and it was one of these rare occasions when there wasn’t a small smile playing around his lips or anything else that could be counted as acting. Sean had always liked Orlando for being able to switch back and forth between characteristics, whatever the situation demanded. But as much as he both needed and enjoyed his own acting abilities as well as Orlando’s he couldn’t bring himself to look away now that Orlando dropped the mask. He wanted to see and maybe it should’ve scared him that he did, maybe it should’ve petrified him that he wanted Orlando to see as well. 

“And who’s that supposed to be?”

It was a stupid question, really, wasn’t it? Because you should very well know who you were when you were almost half a century old. Because someone else, especially someone so much younger, couldn’t answer it for you. 

Orlando sighed and that sigh was the counterpart to his hopeful and trusting whimper when Sean had kissed his neck. 

“I dunno either,” he replied with a small voice, the voice of a child that couldn’t answer the one question in the oral exam that mattered. 

A stupid, stupid question. Because maybe Sean hadn’t put enough effort in answering it for himself, maybe he’d been practicing some sick ménage a trios with melancholy and self-pity over the last days. Maybe. 

But when he leaned over now and placed a kiss on Orlando’s upper arm he knew for sure that there was something better than desperately clinging to acting alone. He knew that even if he couldn’t exactly say who ‘Sean Bean’ was – all masks abandoned – that this Sean had Orlando. And that was a good enough reason to be him, wasn’t it? It was more than good enough to stop being paralysed and start chasing the ghost away that by then also had Orlando scared.

“So, fever, eh?” Sean picked up Orlando’s metaphor, his words slightly mumbled because his lips were still touching Orlando’s skin. Another kiss and he rested his chin on the younger man’s shoulder. His voice was back to their usual friendly banter and this time it was him offering a way out when he teased, “I heard chicken soup is a real good medicine against that sort of thing.”

Orlando’s shoulder vibrated a little when the younger man chuckled softly and Sean let him take his hand and entwine their fingers.

“Don’t you never learn?” chided Orlando, squeezing Sean’s hand. “How often do I have to tell you that the secret is not the soup but the back-pocket-of-the-pants ritual?”

“Sorry,” Sean replied with a grin, “Does it only work with your scabby baggy pants or do ordinary trousers to the trick, too?”

“’s that mean you want to make me magic chicken soup?”

Sean closed his eyes and buried his face in the crook of Orlando’s neck.

“I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.” 

***

Sean should have seen it coming but he was too busy losing the third pool game in a row against Alan to notice before it was too late. Orlando had downed enough to make a horse shitfaced and, having worked with him all day, Sean knew that he hadn’t been in too peaceful a mood even before they’d entered their local. 

He started chatting up one of the girls at the bar, a blonde lass whose blushing smiles seemed a bit familiar to Sean. Orlando’s shoulders were as tense as the one of a panther right before it came down on his prey, his eyes shone in fiery cold calculation, all a dead give away that he knew perfectly well with whom he was flirting. But Sean had a tenner against Alan in the game and had to concentrate on getting this right. Until Tony, one of the blokes working at the theatre and constructing the stage setting, came back from the loo. Then Sean knew who she was. 

Orlando only stopped chatting up the girlfriend because apparently picking a fight with the jealous lover seemed even more entertaining to him. Sean’s red ball missed its destination and he felt something knotting inside his belly, constricting around his breathing pipe with blistering heat. 

He could sense the blow even before Tony’s right fist had moved for the first time. Orlando was faster, Tony was heavier. Orlando’s fist connected with Tony’s jaw, snapping him around, Tony’s made Orlando stumble backwards and hit his head hard against one of the shelves. Sean winced. But he didn’t move, couldn’t move. Torn between awe and sickness. Somehow time had stopped and he was just standing there and staring, watching Orlando’s eyes lose their colour as he switched to fighting maliciously and dirty.

Hard blows, nasty noises, too bright pictures, until some of the men at the bar managed to grab the construction worker from behind. Stop. The second Tony was restricted Orlando halted, spat bloody saliva on the floor and turned away. A spoiled child abandoning one of too many toys with arrogant ignorance. 

Tony was set loose and with a shake of his head he sat down at the bar next to his girl. All peaceful again. But Sean still felt this shrill tingling in his belly and knew that Orlando had given in way too easily to be trusted. Adrenaline rushed through Sean’s veins in stolen ecstasy, cold sweat spread black ice on his back. 

Sean was across the pub and at the bar at exactly the moment Orlando’s dark eyes fixed on Tony’s back again, promising pain. Sean grabbed Orlando’s arm hard and, catching the younger man by surprise with fingers digging into lean muscles, dragged him out of the pub.

“You stupid bastard!” Sean bellowed once they were outside.

He shoved Orlando’s shoulder with so much vigour that the younger man lost his balance and had to brace himself against the wall to stay upright. Orlando turned around again and frowned at Sean as if not comprehending the older man’s words. Then he rubbed through his tousled curls and pulled a face when his fingers became sticky. He brought his hand in front of his eyes to investigate it and blinked in surprise at the dark red blood covering his fingerprints. Experimentally his tongue darted out to taste it, then he brushed his hands on the thighs of his already dirty jeans. 

“Wasn’t that you,” Orlando finally replied and his voice sounded only slightly slurry, “who claimed that picking fights in a pub is the next best thing right after a good footie match?”

He snickered quietly and came to stand in front of Sean. 

“If you’re sober enough to win the fucking brawl or pissed enough so you won’t feel the bashing,” Sean said with angry exasperation and pushed his fists into the pockets of his pants to not just reach out and shake Orlando. 

“And stop messing with the guys from construction,” Sean said, annoyance and something else making his vocal cords vibrate, “you work with them, you sod! Show a bit of professionalism, lad.”

Orlando pulled back, sober. 

“Did I ask for your fucking advice? Spare me the patronizing, Sean,” he said coldly and enquired, tilting his head to the left, “What is he gonna do anyway, eh? Is he gonna bash my head in with a prop?”

“More than he already did, you mean?” Sean asked and raised his hand as if to cup the back of Orlando’s head. He knew he’d touch blood there, didn’t know what he would do then. Shake probably, kill Tony perhaps. He stared into Orlando’s dark eyes and all he could feel was imaginary blood dripping from his fingers, sticky and slippery. He swallowed hard.

Lowering his trembling hand again he finally growled, “What’s wrong with you? I thought not even _you_ could be that stupid!”

Orlando drew back at the disappointment in Sean’s voice and ran a hand through his hair, shaking his head.

“What crawled up your arse and died there?” Orlando asked with irritation.

“Mine?” Sean yelled back. His throat felt hoarse as if revolting against the words he spoke. “Who’s the one behaving like a psychopathic schoolboy for fuck’s sake? You act like you don’t give a shit if the world comes to an end right here and now.”

“Oh, look who’s talking,” snarled Orlando, “what do _you_ care?”

What did he care what did he care what did he care? What did he care that it made his heart beat faster when Orlando fought? What did he care that it made his stomach turn when there was the chance Orlando might lose? What did he care that it made him move towards Orlando? What did he care?

“I don’t,” he grunted and crossed his arms in front of his chest. Trying to end the litany in his head, even if the words echoed endlessly inside of him.

For a second Orlando looked like he was about to hit Sean, too. Sean probably would’ve let him. But instead Orlando just shoved him hard, his flat palm pressing against Sean’s chest. 

“Oh, fuck it!” he hissed. “Why do we talk about this at _all_?”

Sean glared at him. “You tell me.”

Orlando’s eyes darkened even further under his furrowed brows.

“No,” he said and shook his head. His hand left Sean’s chest and he walked away. 

For once he didn’t tell Sean. And Sean didn’t ask again.

Not that evening, not the next day. There wasn’t any more yelling, nor was there aggressive provocation or nervous chit chat. They just stopped talking altogether. 

A week passed like that. A week in which Sean shagged Orlando in the theatre’s cloak room. Sean left for the pictures on his own. A week in which Orlando screwed Sean against his kitchen cabinet. But Orlando left for dinner without him. 

A week in which they fucked but didn’t talk at all. 

Sean hated it. 

Disliking stuff was quite a normal pattern of behaviour for him and usually, he just accumulated enough things to disapprove of so he could randomly forget about them one after the other, not caring about each of them in particular. But he couldn’t forget about this. He hated it that he didn’t talk to Orlando and Orlando didn’t talk to him, hated it when he woke up, when he showered, when he ate, acted, shopped for groceries, he even hated it when he was fucking Orlando. 

Couldn’t get it out of his head. 

Couldn’t get it out of his frigging heart.

In search for a substitute, he went back to looking at Orlando. He knew Orlando never minded, narcissistic bastard that he was, and even if he did, Sean didn’t think he’d be able to stop anyway. So he watched. 

Orlando had the attention span of a butterfly though the comparison couldn’t be more far-fetched. The attention span of a hornet then. Orlando’s nose was a bit crooked but not just since Saturday. Sean arched his scarred eyebrow in realisation. He felt like a drug addict on cold turkey or – how much more fitting was this comparison in all its ridiculousness – like an overweight boy on a diet who pressed his chubby face against the window of a pastry shop. 

Sean was well aware that they were being unreasonable. After all, if he hated not talking to Orlando so much he should just resume the fucking conversation, right? He usually didn’t have any problems with that. Since he rarely cared if he offended people by being honest he rarely found himself needing to think over how to phrase what needed to be said. He simply said it. But when it came to Orlando he suddenly just couldn’t. 

Once he started thinking about how to say what his perfectionist brain dug its claws into every shy offering of words and sentences possible and ripped them into shreds. He’d stopped Orlando’s attack on Tony because –. He chided himself for doing so because –. He wanted Orlando to –. Nothing to finish these thoughts and not a word would leave his mouth. He had no words and maybe he had never possessed them, had never cared for them either. Hadn’t even wanted them when he had been staring at Orlando in his sleep and the other man wouldn’t even have noticed him confessing. 

But now and even though [ferroaxinite](http://www.carnegiemnh.org/minerals/hillman/images/systemat/27253.jpg) eyes stared back with matching intensity, now he wanted words, wanted their banter, bitching and musing, their jokes, teasing and whispers back more than anything. 

It was Sunday afternoon, after another rehearsal. Orlando leaned against a wall on the theatre’s roof terrace and when Sean came out he shuffled over a little to make room for him. The sky was colourless, the tip of Orlando’s fag gleamed against the dull grey. 

“Please talk to me again,” Sean said eventually. What else was there to say? _’Please.’_

Orlando took a long drag from his cigarette and maybe due to that his voice sounded as hoarse as Sean’s vocal cords felt when he spoke.

“What should I say?” he asked. His face was half hidden by his hand which held the cigarette but his eyes fixed Sean intently. 

The older man shrugged, or was that his shoulders trembling?

“Anything,” he replied and unexplainably felt his cheeks heating up despite the coldness of the day. He averted his gaze, searching his pockets for his last remaining cigarettes. “Just – anything at all.”

Orlando sighed quietly, exhaling smoke, and with an unusually careful movement leaned his head against the stone wall. 

“I’m an idiot,” he grunted.

Sean abruptly interrupted his fumbling search, the fingers of his right hand still buried in his shirt pocket, and looked at Orlando. 

The other man met his gaze and his eyebrows quirked up in that peculiar manner of his. The one that said _‘I’m not above admitting mistakes, but don’t you dare to call me on them.’_ The same that rather frequently made people call Sean an arrogant, self-obsessed wanker. 

A grin spread from Sean’s lips all over his face, moving muscles that he’d almost forgotten he possessed. He leaned back against the wall, his shoulder touching Orlando’s.

“I’m the bigger one,” he said and chuckled, unable to hold back the relief.

Orlando moved his shoulder a little, nudging Sean, and enquired with friendly mockery, “Are you picking a fight with me?”

And there was the subtle curving of Orlando’s mouth back that made him smirk slightly crookedly. Sean enjoyed arguing with Orlando and knew that sooner rather than later they’d be back to bellowing into one anther’s faces. But though he valued Orlando’s ability to give just as well as he got and though he found the other man’s hot temper infatuating he now shook his head peaceably.

“Nah. Who’d be there to have your back then?”

Orlando understood the quiet tone of Sean’s voice because he nodded easily and brought his cigarette back to his lips.

“Yeah, alright. I’m not sloshed enough for a brawl anyway.” 

Sean finally found the fags he’d been searching for and leaned closer to Orlando when the younger man gave him a light. He made a vague gesture and asked, 

“How’s that gash on the back of your head?”

Orlando automatically reached up to run his fingers through his short curls and shrugged.

“Alright. A bit sore when I sleep on my back, that’s all.” Casually he added, “Stupid, as I’ve said, like most drunken brawls.”

Sean took a deep drag of his cigarette that filled his lungs with pleasant warmth. Even if the nicotine couldn’t have unfolded its pacifying effect yet he hummed in contentment before he answered. 

“Even so, I’m sorry for losing it like I did. I guess –,” he shrugged before he went on quickly, tricking his brain this time by not giving it a chance to intercede, “I guess I was shirty because you were so frigging careless. Worried you might get hurt.

“Huh,” Orlando grunted and even though this technically speaking wasn’t even a word, Sean understood the hidden puzzlement. “Which of the two was worse?”

“I don’t know,” Sean replied automatically but tried again when this didn’t satisfy him at all. Suddenly it was almost simple. “At first I was pissed off with you because I thought you’d blindly rely on me. Then, when I saw you didn’t, it annoyed me because I think I wanted you to despite –“

Again Sean hesitated for a second but not because he regretted the revelation but because he didn’t know how to give word to the objection against it. Orlando cut in, helping him out off handedly like he usually did.

“– You making a pretty shady chivalrous knight?” he suggested and an amused gleam in his eyes flashed up for one second. But the mocking glance was replaced by serious interest only a moment later.

Sean brought his fag back to his mouth and puffed out a rather imperfect circle. It was barely visible against the grey of the sky even before it dissolved.

“I’d make a shitawful knight, believe me.”

Orlando’s eyes had followed the disappearing smoke and after it was gone they lingered at the sight of the dark grey clouds promising rain.

“Good thing I don’t need you to be one anyway.” 

In addition to all the other mostly rather dubious qualities they had in common Orlando was just as nitpicky about words as Sean. Maybe that came with being actors and having to be able to interpret someone else’s thoughts so accurately that you could give a believable performance. But mayhaps a rationalization didn’t exist at all, just like most of their similarities simply couldn’t be explained. 

Sean knew that Orlando’s ‘don’t need’ had to be carefully distinguished from a ‘don’t ever want’. A small detail that so easily could slip one’s attention but a world lay between the two alternatives. Whereas need would’ve meant monstrous uncontrollability with endless strings attached to it, Sean could deal with the possibility of unvoiced want. _Wanted_ to deal with it. 

He nodded once, understanding. And as if sealing a pact Orlando replied in kind, flicking his cigarette off the roof top. 

“Y’know, I got this brilliant idea,” Orlando said as if nothing much had happened between them right then. His accent changed subtly, more lilting and melodic now, and the seriousness had once again made room for teasing, “next time I yearn for a spot of violence and you feel left out I’ll just thump _you_. Tada, all problems solved.” 

Sean shook his head, thereby completely denying the obvious fact that he shared the urgency for random blowing off of steam. 

“Your liking for bloodshed is peculiar.” 

“Alright,” Orlando sighed heavily and made his next words sound insulting were it not for the grin on his face, “be all mature about it then. Why do I put up with you?”

Sean let his cigarette fall to the ground and scattered the ashes with the tip of his shoe. 

“Why do you indeed,” he answered as if fully sharing Orlando’s grievance.

Sean looked up from the ashes and found Orlando staring at him as if he had always known the answer to this question – however much intended to be merely rhetorical – and now only had to pick from the vast variety of possibilities.

“You –,” he finally started, hesitated and grunted in quiet frustration when the sentence didn’t finish itself. “Ah, you know why.”

Sean pushed himself away from the wall and half turned, so he was facing Orlando. For a second Orlando’s instincts seemed to object against being trapped like that – old habits died hard, didn’t they? But then his shoulders relaxed again and the older man felt him exhaling, breathing out the tension. Orlando met Sean half way as he leaned forward and rested his forehead against Sean’s.

“Aye,” Sean said eventually and hooked his finger in the half open zipper of Orlando’s soft jacket, “I know.”

He closed his eyes when Orlando’s long fingers curled around his neck. Warm fingertips pressing into his skin, erasing the damp chill of the frosty day. The smell of upcoming rain and cigarette smoke, musky aftershave and Orlando with every calm intake of breath. 

They both pulled back at the same time, facing each other, both grinning.

“Also –,” Orlando started but Sean cut him off instantly and finished his sentence for him, 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Aside from all my other qualities I’m also a great lay.”

Orlando’s index poked Sean’s chest in mock criticism as if he himself had been about to say something deeply philosophical in comparison.

“Now look at you. Hiding emotions behind a joke. Tsk, tsk.” 

His hand rested above Sean’s heart and he looked up from its back to meet Sean’s eyes. 

“Well, it’s a good thing, innit?” Orlando continued. “At least you don’t secretly read ‘Cosmo’ and cut out articles on psychology for dummies.” 

Straightening his back and batting his eyelashes, his voice was several octaves higher when he pretended to quote, “As in: ‘Does an armful of red roses really show my boyfriend’s devotion or does he just want to get into my knickers?’”

“If you excuse me,” Sean said gravely, “I need to go and vomit now.”

But of course this didn’t stop Orlando. As always he took Sean’s half hearted complaint as an encouragement to go on. He raised his index finger to his lower lip and furrowed his brows in a fairly convincing imitation of a fifteen year old girl that was seriously pondering.

“‘Does my wish to hold my boyfriend’s hair back while he’s being sick show that I’ve lost my heart or just my mind?’” 

Sean groaned, still playing along, and buried his face in the palm of his hand when he shook his head in exasperation.

“You’re so full of shit,” he grumbled while little laugh lines appeared around his eyes, “it’s no wonder I’m usually incapable of admitting that I care about you.”

Orlando smiled. Genuine and honest, and it was better than any words either of them could’ve come up with. It lasted for a whole of two precious seconds and Sean’s eyes were still willingly held captive by such a small thing, were still glued to Orlando’s lips when they shifted into a more common daring grin. Sean caught Orlando’s index in his fist and removed it from the younger man’s lips so his mouth could take its place. Orlando didn’t object but when he leaned close, touching, Sean could feel his silent snickering. Sean tilted his head a little to wait the other man out and only a second later the tip of Orlando’s tongue traced the seam of his lips, seeking entrance.

It started to rain then. Warmish summer water poured down around them and onto them in heavy drops, soaked Sean’s shirt and slacks, plastered Orlando’s unruly curls to his head, ran down their bodies and faces. The droplets were caught here and there where the two of them were too close for even tiny rivulets to sneak between them while they kissed.

***

Sean wished he could open his eyes. 

He could hear Orlando move, feel him move close to his body. The floor boards creaked ever so quietly under the young man’s feet as he came closer, heavy boots on old wood, falling silent when he came to a halt right next to Sean. He felt Orlando’s presence hovering over him, never really touching, as if too afraid to do so. He knew the other man’s lips were quivering, his eyes opened wide in shock, a hand raised to cover the desperation as if this could keep it inside, could hold him together. 

Sean wanted to reach out to touch his thigh, now close as Orlando knelt beside him. Not for the first time did he wonder if the urgency to comfort, to soothe hadn’t already wound its way deep inside of his real self as well. 

"My friend," Orlando whispered, loud and well pronounced and yet his words trembled like the earth in the aftermath of a quake. Sean could feel his breath, ragged by choice, warm, hot ghosting over the naked skin of his half exposed chest. Orlando’s fingertips touched him now. Two of them dipped into the hollow of his throat, glided down to his heart and drew two red strokes on their way back up. Wickedly light as a feather they left Sean yearning for more, almost trembling. 

But once again he didn't move and instead lay still, slain by those gentle fingers.

He could smell Orlando’s arousal beneath the thick leather, knew this last act made him hard. When Orlando spoke again his voice was darkened with black despair, but it was the underlying canvas of insane acceptance that made shivers run down Sean’s spine. 

“That’s what it takes?”

Sean held his breath.

Until the curtain fell. It took stunned seconds until the thunderous applause broke through the thick velvet. 

Sean opened his eyes. He had to blink repeatedly against the brightness of the spotlights – three, four times, then Orlando was back above him to cast a shadow. His eyes were glazed, he hadn’t really fully gotten rid of his role yet but he still grinned down at Sean and held out his hand to help him up.

Sean accepted the offer and, once on his feet again, pulled Orlando into a quick hug.

“You’re getting your fake blood all over me, you bastard” said Orlando’s smiling voice into his ear in this too short moment of privacy before the curtain was lifted again. 

Hunger. Sean was actor enough to hide his obsession and make small talk with colleagues and critics. 

Hunger. Orlando accepted congratulations for his performance graciously, swirled Liv around, danced with her and whomever else, easy going and joyous apparently. 

Hunger. It was Orlando who got them out as early as possible but it still felt almost too late when they reached Sean’s flat. 

Hunger. Their bodies acted like two strong magnets the second they were inside. 

Orlando’s fingers dug into Sean’s shoulders, Sean’s hands left marks on Orlando’s hips. Sean growled and pushed Orlando back against the wall, not caring about the impact of his shove. He leaned in with his full body weight and restricted Orlando’s ability to move. Teeth clashed, lips bruised. Sean pressed his mouth onto Orlando’s, forced his tongue between Orlando’s lips, sucked the air out of Orlando’s lungs. Everything was hard and aggressive and powerful just like every time after a premiere.

But tonight something else was in the mix. Sighs that sounded just that little bit off, too quiet, but never reluctant. Ghostlike touches sneaked in between, soft quivers instead of violent shuddering. It made Sean’s head spin, rapidly fast, slowly losing it. Orlando just took the rough handling. He pressed his lithe body against Sean’s but not to shove him away but moulding against him. Every fibre of him seeking contact. He let Sean’s tongue twist around his own and capture it. 

Surrender? From Orlando? 

Orlando never did anything like that, Sean told himself in firm confusion. When Sean pushed him Orlando always pushed back equally hard. Orlando would growl and bite and fight for every inch. He didn’t give in. Or did he?

They broke the kiss, the only loss of contact though. Orlando’s exhales mingled with his own when they panted, trying to catch their breaths. 

“They clapped their hands raw,” Orlando suddenly said, referring to this evening’s standing ovations, “and I couldn’t hear a fucking sound of it. Blood rushing in my ears and all. It was like – shit, like nothing else. Man, it was bloody _brilliant_ , wasn’t it?”

Something in Orlando’s voice again threatened to trigger Sean’s starving hunger. Like a melody lying underneath, turning his words into a siren’s song. The young man hummed at the memory of the fanatic audience and pressed his cheek against Sean’s like an affectionate tomcat, letting the other man feel the vibes of his purr.

“Let’s go to bed,” Sean finally replied.

Orlando looked at him oddly for a moment, then he nodded and Sean let go. Orlando undressed with idle efficiency, he didn’t throw his clothes all over the flat this time but instead simply stepped out of them piece after piece on the way to the bedroom, trusting Sean to do the same and follow. The older man’s impatient nature set an abrupt halt to the idle dawdling. Shirts, trousers off, underwear off, bed, now – and Sean covered Orlando. 

It was like their lips hadn’t parted at all when Orlando leaned up to press his mouth against Sean’s again, apparently too eager to wait for Sean to resume the kiss. Sean growled and reached between their naked bodies in search for Orlando’s hands. The right he found where he’d expected it to be, curled around Orlando’s cock of course. The young man only stuck out his lower lip in disappointment when Sean removed it and pressed it into the pillow above Orlando’s head. 

Sean looked down at him now and his gaze was met by pitch black eyes. The insanity of the other actor’s character in the play formed a questionable alliance with Orlando’s apparent arousal. It was plum talent and the feeling of lush accomplishment coalesced with it. Not jaded by decades at the theatre Orlando had it woven through his being. It was pure and vivid as life itself. As if Orlando was unable or just unwilling to control it on his own it demanded domination.

Sean shook his head, trying to get rid of the primal instinct to react accordingly. Control. This wasn’t how they were, what they were.

Orlando looked at him, slight worry surfacing in his eyes.

“What is it?” he asked. His free hand touched Sean’s back. Rubbed his shoulder and slowly slid down over tense muscles, lingered only a second on the curve of Sean’s arse to then rest in the small of his back. 

As if to steady him. 

No. 

Steadying him. 

Orlando’s left hand gently stroked Sean’s cheek, just waiting to be caught to join its companion. Sean had to grip firmly to hold both of the other man’s strong wrists captive but judging by the happy sigh pouring over Orlando’s momentarily unkissed lips the younger actor didn’t mind, appreciated it even. 

“That was a fucking intense performance,” Sean murmured against the other man’s skin, commenting on the play and the vibes still coming from Orlando. “Like you’d combust any second.”

Orlando licked his lips and because the two of them were so close his tongue touched Sean’s cheek as well. 

“Still feel like I might,” he whispered back as if revealing a dark secret and twisted his wrists in Sean’s hold experimentally. 

The older man’s fingertips dug harder into lean muscles in response. He shifted a little, coming to lie between Orlando’s legs now and when their erections were lined up, snugly trapped between them, Sean leaned down for another kiss.

Orlando’s lips were already lush and swollen from the abuse, sensitive to the lightest touch, and they quivered when Sean’s tongue licked over them soothingly. Sean’s kiss was peaceful and only after a while Orlando leaned up as much as he could and his wet tongue graced Sean’s chin before it moved along his jawbone and swirled around his earlobe.

“Will you fuck me,” he asked. The short plea hung in the air, heavy like a rain cloud in its seriousness, and Sean had anticipated Orlando’s addition to take away some of the sincerity that came promptly, “any time this millennium?”

“Maybe,” Sean gave back with a half smile and asked in return, “this not good enough for you?”

Orlando thought about this for a moment, twisted underneath Sean only to find himself still securely caught. 

“It’s better,” he decided. There was no question of ‘better than what’ because Orlando’s body still screamed it every second but Sean wasn’t satisfied with ‘better’. Not good enough.

“Don’t move,” he ordered, knowing that he was not playing fair. Giving in was so much easier when, after the initial decision, the choice was taken from you by physical restriction. But Orlando just hesitated for the fraction of a second as if assessing his own trust in Sean’s ability to force up ‘better’. Then he didn’t move an inch. 

Sean sat back on his heels, reaching for the nightstand with condoms and lube, and while his hands swiftly prepared himself his eyes never left Orlando’s body. His chest heaved under deep intakes of air, sharply outlining his collar bone with each breath and under Sean’s watchful gaze the muscles of Orlando’s bent and raised arms twitched as if to prove that they were still free to move if they only wanted to. Sean put aside the small tube of lubricant and in response Orlando’s thighs dropped open even further.

Sean took his cock into his fist and guided it to Orlando’s hole, his free hand resuming its position around Orlando’s wrists. Orlando’s eyelids fluttered shut in response but opened again immediately as if their eyelock was at least as important as the physical connection. The head of Sean’s cock pushed past the first ring of muscles, unprepared and impossibly tight, but Orlando’s breathing didn’t even hitch.

“How does it feel?” Sean asked, every syllable clearly pronounced even though spoken against Orlando’s trembling lips.

“It burns,” Orlando mouthed, drawing the vowel out in a growl when the other man pushed in even further. “It’s like being split open and put back together again differently.”

Synthetic cubism, Sean understood that. He thrust in completely and Orlando’s cock pulsed between their bellies while Sean gave him a moment to adjust. Tightness gripping him, squeezing, coaxing him to be gentle or violating, Sean couldn’t decide.

“Is it good?”

“Yes. No. Yes,” Orlando said and a ghost of a smile flickered in his eyes. His legs, pushed apart by Sean’s hips, wrapped around the older man’s waist, ankles locking behind his back.

“I only realise how much it defines me when it’s close to overwhelming me completely. Makes me feel whole and like I might burst at the same time.” 

“It feels good to me,” Sean simply stated and he wasn’t sure himself what they were referring to. 

Acting. Fucking. Living.

“That’s because you’re a frigging pyromaniac.”

Instead of replying Sean rocked his hips, drove his cock home and caught Orlando’s gasp with his lips. His nails dug deep into the lean flesh of Orlando’s wrists, fingerprints left like bruises on the soft inside of Orlando’s thigh. He shoved into him again and again and Orlando arched his back, offered his neck as he cried. 

Orlando’s hole was tight around his cock, it almost hurt because Sean hadn’t given him enough time to adjust and his dick was just a bit too thick. Each forceful thrust drove him deeper, burned more, scorching, depredating, too much and in a glimpse of mindfulness Sean slowed down. Despite the hunger, despite the raging desire to possess. 

Orlando blinked and his brows furrowed, displeased to be called back to a place where he had to think for himself. He twisted his hands under Sean’s grip, at least seemed to be satisfied with the strong hold. He bucked up against Sean, sweaty hard chest pressed against Sean’s, his cock weeping against Sean’s belly. 

Sean’s body craved what Orlando’s had to offer. The purity of his lust, the clarity of his talent, the immaculateness of his joy. Despite his initial instinct to slow down every nerve ending of Sean’s body still screamed for it, demanded to suck in this energy. Feed from Orlando like a parasite. 

Orlando leaned up, as much as he could, his sweat mingling with Sean’s, his breath making the tiny hairs on Sean’s skin stand to attention when he spoke.

“Come on,” he whispered, both seduction and plea. His lips were hot against Sean’s earlobe. “Take it.”

Sean did. He bit down on Orlando’s shoulder for a few thrusts and when the first tension in Orlando’s body left and let him settle down again, Sean pushed himself up. Their eyes locked and without Sean having to say anything, without him having to repeat the order spoken earlier, Orlando’s arms stayed resting above his head when Sean let go of his wrists. 

Sean rose to kneel between Orlando’s spread legs, both hands pressing down on the vulnerable flesh that was the inside of Orlando’s thighs, pushing them up and further apart. Orlando’s head lolled to the right when Sean started fucking him earnestly with hard precise stabs and his body stretched even more under Sean’s strong hands. Sean looked down between their bodies, the muscles of his own belly and thighs tense as he moved, watched his cock sliding into Orlando’s willing body and out again almost completely, waited a cruel, unrhythmical second and only then thrust back in. 

Over and over Orlando welcomed the intrusion, shook in waves of pleasure that swept over Sean and the older man only looked up when Orlando’s groans changed into shouts. Orlando wrapped trembling fingers around the head board, his stretched arms tense with desire and he couldn’t seem to get enough air into his lungs to cry out his obvious relief every thrust anew. Sean fucked him and watched him and listened to him, his own dark groans over and over again answered by those screams until he got too selfish even for that. 

Orlando hiccupped his next shout because Sean changed the angle, pushing Orlando’s legs up against his chest and leaning down, Sean didn’t let him start screaming again. Orlando’s eyes regained some of their focus momentarily when Sean’s hand closed around his throat, squeezing enough to cut off all the unnecessary air, all the oxygen Orlando would only use to cry out his pleasure uselessly into the night instead of offering it for Sean to consume. He felt Orlando reflexively trying to gulp in air, his breathing pipe pressing hard against the inside of Sean’s palm, but the young man’s eyes didn’t reflect any panic at all. 

Sean let go enough for Orlando to breathe, breathe in with each forceful thrust, enough to take it, to go on shaking underneath Sean with barely controllable force now. Each trembling of his body, each contracting of his muscles, each blink of his eye sent sparks of robbed energy through Sean and Orlando’s being was soaked up by Sean’s greedy body. Loud as thunder Sean could hear his own pulse pounding inside of his veins in perfect synchrony with Orlando’s jugular vein throbbing against his hold. Orlando’s entire being pulsed against him, inside of him, seeping through every pore of their touching skin.

Orlando gave willingly, pushed against Sean to offer him more and more, force him to relieve him of this burden, almost satisfied with the hard fucking he received, the minimum of air he was granted, the sweat dropping down in what felt like rivulets from Sean’s chest to christen his own. Still it wasn’t enough for him and, so, so close to coming already, it took Sean a second to realise what else Orlando was waiting for. 

Orlando came when Sean understood. Orlando came when Sean closed his mouth over Orlando’s and repeated this initial kiss, so tender and forceful at the same time that it left Orlando breathless after all. Whimpered soundlessly into Sean’s mouth the last wave of gladly given energy flowed from the young man’s body and Sean kept kissing him, fucking him, holding him until he stilled. 

Only then did he let go himself and came, cock buried deep in Orlando’s hole, teeth buried deep in Orlando’s shoulder.

Not parasitism. 

Orlando wrapped his arms around Sean’s shivering body and once again stroked down his spine, nuzzled his neck. Sean licked the bruised shoulder and let go of Orlando’s throat to cup his cheek before kissing his jaw.

Symbiosis.

***

“Who’s that?“ Sean asked, nodding in Orlando’s direction.

Liv rested her hand on his shoulder and followed his gaze towards the lobby of the theatre.

“Camera man or something like that,” he heard the smile in her voice when she added, “Oh, and Orli’s ex.”

Sean concentrated his attention on the silent movie taking place several feet ahead of him. The chit chatting of the theatre guests between them made it impossible for him to listen in but Orlando’s body language had always been explicit enough for Sean to interpret it. Right now an odd tension in his back was accompanied by uncharacteristically hesitant waves of his hands that weren’t so much, so it seemed to Sean, there to illustrate Orlando’s words but to keep a distance between himself and the tall dark haired bloke opposite. Silent accusations hung in the air, polluting it. 

“Is that so?” asked Sean eventually and sipped from his lager without taking his eyes off Orlando. “Haven’t considered you to be one to be interested in gossip of any kind.”

Liv chuckled quietly and patted his shoulder. “Likewise, likewise. But you pick things up when you actually listen to what people say.”

Sean held his hand in front of his mouth, half heartedly mocking a yawn as a response, and Liv laughed and walked away. 

She was wrong of course because Sean did listen to what people told him. His brain just filtered data quite radically into information concerning him and all those other bollocks and he tended to forget the latter rather quickly. 

Whom Orlando had been fucking definitely registered in the latter category, didn’t it? What was there to talk about? – _‘Was it good? Wanna have a cuppa coffee and tell me about how his brows furrowed when he came?’_ – And while Sean might actually develop a certain curiosity regarding that he was of absolutely no use in all that possible feelings crap that might be attached to it. And sadness darkening brown eyes? Shite, if that wasn’t relationship material Sean would dress up in green from now on and call himself Peter Pan. 

Since that night Orlando was tentative all of a sudden and hesitation replaced the usual self assurance. It showed in little things but Sean was used to looking closely. Like Orlando needing longer to choose his food in the pub and starting to apologise when someone asked him to hurry up. Or smiling politely at bad puns instead of mocking them. And the vacant stares at the ceiling during breaks at rehearsal? Christ, Sean hated those most. 

It was a matter of days until Sean, against better knowledge, couldn’t hold back any longer. After work in the dressing room, out of something quite close to desperation, Sean did something he never did.

“You alright?” he asked. 

Orlando turned his head to face Sean, a smirk playing on his lips and being reflected by the tiny mirror in front of him. 

“Well, yeah,” he said, “your impromptu late night stew isn’t that bad, mate.”

Sean rubbed the back of his nose, chuckling uneasily. 

“Nah, I didn’t mean your bleeding stomach.”

“What then?” Orlando spun his chair around, drawing his feet up onto the upholstery.

“Just uhm,” Sean mumbled, “generally speaking. Lifewise, I mean.”

“Huh,” Orlando grunted and brown eyes narrowed in a first glimmer of suspicion. “What kind of question is that?”

Bugger this. Sean felt like a virgin spontaneously confronted with a hard cock demanding to be sucked. He willed himself not to blush despite the major feelings of uncomfortableness creeping up inside him and performing a blitzkrieg on his composure.

“I’s just asking,” he said, voice a little defensive and eyes not meeting Orlando’s, “forget it.”

Orlando grunted again but didn’t push the subject. Sean would’ve been grateful for that if Orlando didn’t slump down in his chair instead and stare at his own reflection in the mirror. 

Sean knew that kind of look. Mind you, when he normally saw it in the mirror it had a bigger nose and more wrinkles and short blond hair, what with it being his own face, but the combat fought out between Orlando’s eyes and the ones in the mirror was a familiar one nevertheless. Stubbornness biting melancholy, that kicking anger, which dug its claws deep into the throat of reticence, all of them pushed around by self loathing. 

“Fuck it,” Sean muttered, more to himself than to anyone, and turned to Orlando. “You’re brooding and it has something to do with that bloke from last Saturday and I want to know what’s wrong.” 

Sean stopped his run on sentence to think about whether he’d forgotten anything, then he added, “And this sucks and needs to be fixed.”

Orlando stared at him incredulously for a second, then took a deep breath.

“I’m not brooding and there’s nothing to fix and what the fuck has _he_ got to do with anything anyway?”

Apparently it was run-on-sentences-Thursday. 

“You’ve been acting fucked up ever since you talked to him the other day,” said Sean.

Orlando got up from his chair like an animal having decided that charging was the best strategy of defence.

“Are you jealous? Is that it?”

What?

“What? Are we having the same conversation here? How’s this about me being,” Sean stopped for half a second, choking on the word, before he spat it out, “jealous?”

Orlando took another step towards Sean, his entire posture daring and aggressive. 

“Well, are you?” 

Now Sean stood as well, hating being looked down at. No, he wasn’t jealous, never had been. And contrary to all other character traits he had, and not only liked but also took for granted the lack of jealousy was something he was actively grateful for. Not having to suffer from an emotion that turned women into furies and men into hyenas was something that made him almost humble. Well – him being him – the ‘almost’ bit needed to be stressed and besides, being accused of acting on a low feeling he for once didn’t even possess made him all the more angry.

“Piss off, Orlando,” he therefore growled but he realised what was going on here just before he lashed out even more. “Don’t try to divert my attention with rubbish like that.” 

Orlando looked irritated that Sean, normally having such a short fuse, didn’t go for it. Dropping the subject he obviously had never intended to seriously discuss he simply snarled, “Did I ask for a fucking therapy session?”

“Well,” Sean snapped back and crossed his arms in front of his chest, “that depends if that hurt puppy dog expression you’ve been wearing all week counts as a request for one.” 

They glared at each other silently. Sean could feel the anger sucking hard on his innards and Orlando, too, seemed to be only a hiccup away from cracking. His jaw was set stubbornly and his stare was hard as igneous rock. A strangely beautiful contrast to the soft strands of his dark hair curling on his forehead. 

It had happened more often than he would care to admit that Sean had gotten distracted by something as mundane as this tiny contrast reflecting Orlando’s ambivalence. It snapped him out of his instinctive anger like a splash of cold water sobered up a drunkard and instead of pushing it Sean took a deep breath and a step back. Unconsciously he moved out of Orlando’s way to the door and his fingers combed through his blond hair in a gesture to diffuse the tension in the air.

“Look,” he said quietly, “none of my business, yeah?”

Orlando’s eyes focused on Sean and they both tried to interpret the tone of Sean’s voice. Sean still met Orlando’s gaze and didn’t flinch away from the still present suspicion almost turning the brown eyes into a hazel green. He looked closer when Orlando didn’t move or talk and he frowned. Orlando’s eyes were fixed on Sean and like a predator he would notice any movement that could be interpreted as an attempt to attack. But the subtle change in the older man’s expression didn’t seem to register. As if the suspicion, the caution weren’t aimed at Sean in the first place.

“Right,” Orlando said eventually and his lips stayed parted as if there were more words waiting to come out but shied away at the last instant. Apparently they both harmonised quite beautifully, both more than sceptical regarding this conversation and yet standing here like they were rehearsing a rather dramatic episode of ‘Coronation Street’.

“Uhm,” Sean said very eloquently and scratched his head again, grunt and gesture translating into a tentative uphold of his previous offer, and Orlando replied in kind, murmuring, “Yeah.”

When the door to the dressing room clicked shut behind Orlando Sean sat down again, not banging his head onto the table in front of him but being quite close. He went home, grabbing some fish and chips on the way, and watched a re-run of ‘Inspector Morse’ on telly. He smoked too much and went to bed early. 

In the morning, one of those pissing Fridays on which the sun decided to not even make a polite guest appearance, he sat down at his kitchen table, dressed in nothing more but his grey sweatpants and ate some leftover stew while he read in his rather tattered version of their current play. 

So engrossed in his character’s finest monologue he didn’t even bother to put down the book when there was a knock at the door. He looked up from the pages, the doorknob still in his hand, and found Orlando on his doormat. The young man was dripping wet from a miniature storm tide outside and was staring at Sean’s naked stomach. 

Sean waited until Orlando, with reluctance, tore his eyes away from his belly, and then suggested, “A shower?”

Orlando tilted his head to the right and replied, “A shower and a fuck?”

Sean arched an eyebrow, pleasant surprise running like a shiver over his skin. That was more like the Orlando he knew than anything he’d done over the last week. He gestured the younger man to come in and suppressed a smile when Orlando stepped right up and slid his arms around Sean’s waist.

“Shite, you’re fucking cold,” Sean complained automatically, damp clothes feeling chilly on his naked skin.

“Sorry,” Orlando murmured and – Sean blinked and wasn’t quick enough – retreated again, walking past the other actor into his flat. Sean, who’d expected a ‘deal with it, you pussy’ or something equally rude and heart warming and Orlando-ish, scratched his head and followed the younger Brit into the bathroom.

Sean leaned against the doorframe when piece by piece Orlando’s soaked clothing came off and landed in a pile in the bathtub. He didn’t move until Orlando was naked and turned, one foot already in the shower cabin, to face him again. 

“You coming or what?”

Bravado toned Orlando’s voice and Sean didn’t like it at all. Who was that smokescreen for and since when did Orlando have to _act_ bold and demanding anyways? Shrugging off uprising uneasiness with the whole situation once again Sean stepped out of his slacks and joined Orlando in the shower.

The hot water spray was already on, filling the little cabin with steam, and Sean felt Orlando’s fingers on his skin sooner than he saw them. He closed his eyes and let the hot water plaster his hair to his head, let it run down his face, its steady hot prickling a contrast to the stroking of Orlando’s hands. Strong fingers dug into his sides, grabbing him possessively right above his hipbone, and Sean felt his body giving in to the rough touch, craving it, and blood began to pool in his groin. 

But then again the hesitation. Sean had expected to be manhandled against the shower tiles, had some appreciative curse words ready to comment on a unceremonious prep, those fingers opening him up quickly and efficiently and scratching his back before and after Orlando’s cock had been forced into him. But no.

He opened his eyes and had to blink away some heavy water droplets clinging to his lashes. Orlando’s hands were still at his side, Orlando’s chest was almost touching his and he could see the other man’s breath that disrupted the clouds of steam between them. 

Orlando’s brows were furrowed and his dark curls clung to his face, none of their softness left. Now they only stressed the hardness of the young man’s jaw, the sharpness of his cheekbones, the small, almost white line that were his lips being pressed together so tightly. He stared at Sean and right through him as if Sean was nothing but a mirror for him to reflect his disgust over his own insecurity of what to do. And yet a flicker of nameless hope in his eyes kept him from fleeing, took the deadly edge of shame over his own behaviour and made him tremble ever so lightly. 

Orlando’s fingernails left dark red scratches above both of Sean’s hipbones when the older man couldn’t stand it any longer, and took the initiative and pushed Orlando back against the shower wall. Sean revelled in the feeling of these miniature wounds, water rivulets being caught by them and making them burn, and his heart skipped a beat when he looked at Orlando’s face now. In his eyes flashed instinctive annoyance at Sean’s sudden change of plans and Sean wished he could ignore the still all too present tension and reticence underneath that thin layer of momentary irritation. He closed his eyes and pressed his mouth onto Orlando’s and once more Orlando’s fingernails dug into his flesh and he grunted angrily at the invasion of his mouth. But he didn’t bite Sean’s tongue, only sucked it deeper. 

Sean tasted bitterness in Orlando’s mouth and he growled deep in chest, challenging that taste, determined to rip it away from Orlando and rip it to shreds. Violence always had been the one thing to fall back on for him and Orlando seemed to crave the violation with equal passion. 

But this was not adequate this time and Sean realised it abruptly. There would never be enough force, no biting, scratching and raw fucking could fight this. It would be like adding fuel to an all consuming deadly fire, as senseless as trying to neutralise acid with yet more acid. 

He pulled back, both of them panting heavily, both of their lips bruised and swollen. Sean leaned his body against Orlando, their chests touching, their heartbeats picking up each others’ rhythm. He trapped Orlando’s head between his lower arms that he rested against the shower wall and leaned his forehead against Orlando’s. They stood motionless while water dripped steadily from both of their noses, both of their chins. 

Eventually Sean tilted his head to be able to catch one of those tiny droplets from Orlando’s chin with the tip of his tongue. The next water drop, waiting to follow the others’ path, he licked away right under Orlando’s lower lip. Orlando laid his head back when Sean’s tongue traced the lower rim of his lip and Sean tasted bruised flesh, felt the hard edge of the younger man’s mouth smoothening under his touch like a line, drawn with coal, would smudge under the artist’s careful fingertip. 

Orlando’s lips parted invitingly, but Sean ignored the offer and instead kissed the right corner of the young man’s mouth almost chastely. Again his tongue licked his own lips and then dipped into the miniature cave, flicking in it just like Orlando’s own tongue usually did it when he was planning something particularly wicked or was merely teasing Sean. Now it was Sean doing the teasing and at the same time giving it back to Orlando and said corner was tugged up by an involuntary smile, even if only for the fraction of a second. Orlando’s breath was hot on his face, hotter than the shower water could ever be, when Sean’s mouth hovered over Orlando’s before it repeated the ministration on the left side of the young man’s mouth.

“Sean,” Orlando whispered into the older man’s ear when he continued his path of light licks and touches or maybe he just exhaled with a wordless sigh and it was Sean’s mind playing tricks on him. The older man tried to ignore the broken need in that breath, in his name, and yet it made him tremble until his lips had found Orlando’s skin again. He murmured a shushing sound against it and rained tiny kissed onto the outline of Orlando’s jaw, chasing the water drops there. Worshipping the strong bone and the self assurance and light hearted arrogance it represented. 

Orlando’s fingers ran up Sean’s spine to come to rest in the back of his neck when Sean kissed the strong thump-thumping of Orlando’s jugular vein, when he kissed his temple and hummed, knowing that Orlando would hear the soothing sound of appreciation. Gentle were Orlando’s fingers, not demanding but honest and straightforward as they curled in Sean’s neck, asking him to carry on. 

Sean’s tongue flicked over Orlando’s cheekbones in tiny licks, soaking up the salty water until it was gone and Orlando’s skin tasted like Sean. He buried his hands in Orlando’s wet curls and they wove around his fingers like they, too, wanted to make sure he didn’t let go again. He kissed both of the young man’s eyelids and they fluttered under the attention. Orlando breathed out Sean’s name once more and Sean kissed his closed eyes again, let the tip of his tongue play with the long lashes and with the swipes of his tongue he erased the sadness and confusion that had been hiding there. 

He kissed the tip of Orlando’s nose with smiling lips and Orlando responded with a smile that reached his eyes and his brows moments before Sean’s mouth did. Still Sean traced Orlando’s brows in open mouthed soothing and sucked lightly on the perfect skin right above them. He felt Orlando’s other hand pressing against the small of his back as if to never let go again, as if this closed some kind of circle of energy and allowed Sean to feel Orlando’s thoughts even if neither of them could voice them. Under his ministrations, randomly repeated, Sean felt the last of the remaining tension vanish from Orlando’s features and let it be washed away by the steady stream of water raining down on them. 

Again Orlando whispered one single syllable and this time the older man knew it was his name, felt it on his lips when Orlando spoke it against them. His last kiss he breathed onto Orlando’s parted lips, waiting and patient like he could never have been with words. Orlando stilled for a moment before he inhaled again, deep and steady, and then he shared his breath with Sean in an open mouthed kiss of tongues wrapping around one another, quiet moans chasing each other back and forth playfully, relief and comfort and pleasure all mingling together, licking, sucking, feeling, sharing.

Sean wouldn’t have known how long they kissed like that – no, that was a lie. It was approximately eleven minutes because that was how long the hot water in his boiler lasted before the cocooning steam and soothing make believe summer drizzle turned into a rather unpleasant ice rain. Both men growled angrily and stayed for another moment, enjoying the twist those growls added to their kiss too much to break it just yet, before they left the cabin shivering slightly. 

Sean wrapped a towel around his waist and grinned when he looked at Orlando who had a rather different approach to getting dry. He’d thrown his large towel over himself so that not only his head but a good part of his upper body vanished underneath it and his hands rubbed his wet curls and his face through the fluffy fabric.

But the second Orlando’s face had disappeared underneath the towel and was out of Sean’s view, out of reach of his comforting kisses, worry struck out surprisingly forceful. What if that hadn’t been enough? What if it didn’t last? What if -

“Ye know,” Sean said before he had thought it through entirely and maybe that was only because he didn’t have to look at Orlando’s face right now that he was able to speak at all, “that if ye uhm wanna talk and uhm then I still -,“ his voice trailed off.

In the mirror he saw Orlando reappearing under his mountain of fluff and looking at him. 

“Ta but no,” he replied and his tone of voice told Sean before Orlando spoke it out loud, “I’m okay now.” 

He continued toweling himself off and continued as if this was the most logical and easy thing to confess, “And anyways, y’know when I’m, like, shaken I always figure what should I do with others’ opinions? I mean if the problem obviously is that I can’t trust my own judgement at that moment how am I to know that their advice is worth anything?”

“Thanks ever so,” Sean answered dryly but with friendly irony and continued combing his hair. 

Orlando stepped up behind him and made the combing rather difficult by resting his chin on Sean’s shoulder before he stole the brush from the older man’s hand.

“But I do appreciate the offer. Really, I do.” 

Sean smiled crookedly. 

“Trust you to make things awkward after all.”

Orlando rolled his eyes, his desperate attempt to tame his unruly curls somehow ruining the impact of the criticism.

“Normal people would simply say ‘you’re welcome’ and be done with it.”

“Whatever, Dr. Freud. I leave it to you to define normal,” Sean said and contemplated for a second if he needed to shave before dismissing the idea. 

Orlando had finally wrapped his towel around his hips as well and had sat down on the rim of the bathtub, waiting for Sean to finish his mirror gazing. Or so Sean had thought but when Orlando spoke again, only a little hastily this time, his tone of voice indicated that he’d been thinking back and forth about whether to speak again all the time.

“You don’t think,” he said carefully, “that not wearing my heart on my sleeve makes me, I dunno, abnormal? A cold hearted bastard?”

“What?” Sean turned around, truly confused, “Whyever should it?”

Orlando shrugged and didn’t meet Sean’s eyes.

“Well, some people might think that, won’t they.”

So that was what it was all about. A memory of that insecurity was back and Sean contemplated whether Orlando really, truly believed those words could be true. Wondered if and why that bloke Sean didn’t even know the name of could have such an impact on Orlando, wondered whether the origin of that momentary doubt mattered at all. It didn’t.

“Some people might’ve thought that the Blades would never make it back into premier league,” Sean said, aiming for light words. He shrugged but decades of cynicism and misanthropy darkened his words almost too much when he continued, “And there’s always someone reckoning you are a cold hearted bastard or a potential serial killer.”

Orlando contemplated Sean’s words and the tone in which they were spoken for a moment and even though Sean had turned around again to inspect his stubble for a second time he could feel the younger man’s eyes on him all the while. Contemplated whether Sean’s judgement was to be trusted.

“If that is of any consolation for you,” Orlando eventually said, having made up his mind, and got up, “I’ve never thought that you might be a serial killer.”

Sean grinned and trusted the battle to be won or to at least Orlando to have reached a solid truce. When he looked over his shoulder he twisted that grin into a dangerous and evil smirk, playing along. 

“And your careless assumption shall be your downfall someday, boy.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Orlando gave back rather unimpressed and, closing the subject, lightly tugged at Sean’s towel from behind. The loose knot opened and the fabric slid down Sean’s bare legs, pooling at his feet and leaving him naked. 

“I think I was promised a fuck and didn’t so far get it.”

“Not so much ‘was promised’ as ‘shamelessly demanded’,” Sean corrected with amusement and watched Orlando’s fingers traipsing around his belly button. “Which usually gets results and makes you a clever lad indeed.”

“Fuck you, Bean,” Orlando replied distractedly, his tongue sliding up Sean’s neck, his hands closing around his waist and stroking between his thighs.

Sean leaned back, Orlando’s solid chest carrying his weight and he closed his eyes when Orlando’s teeth scratched his shoulder.

“That being the general idea, aye.” 

So Sean got his hard fucking after all, he on his hands and knees on the bed, resulting in a delightful mess and the taste of his come on Orlando’s lips, soreness and deep satisfaction and exhaustion. Orlando called him a whining pussy when he half heartedly complained about the younger man’s weight fully resting on him. And really, Sean was quite alright with that.

***

Sean had always hated December and the whole seasonal charade something fierce because really, Christmas spirit wasn’t anything but a cheap street whore. Her breath was foul with the stink of warmed up cider and spiced candy, her dress was a complete turn off in its badly fitting and tasteless advertising and her talk was shallow and all too foreseeable in its dishonesty. And yet, that little slut drew people in like she was offering blow jobs for free and spread her legs for anyone.

Sean had never kept his thoughts regarding this season crap secret. He glowered at young girls singing Christmas carols on the streets until they started to stutter and fell silent, he said some rather unkind things to some old bags slowing him down because they needed to look at every stupid trinket sold at the stands on the pavement and the attempt of a catholic priest to chat him up on the street very nearly ended in grievous bodily harm. And one of the first pre-Christmas conversations with whomever he was currently seeing – translate: fucking – would inevitably lead to a hurt “But the loving sentiment is what counts, Sean. Don’t you think so?” 

No, Sean didn’t think so but usually – meaning the rest of the year – he could elegantly avoid that topic. Usually he wasn’t in the need to explicitly tell people that he most probably wouldn’t participate in the whole Christmas crap even _if_ he happened to love them. Which he didn’t. 

If there was something about this season that he despised even more than the stench of the streets, then it was this forced closeness, this nauseating wave of sudden affection. 

To prevent that Sean had this not very complex strategy: Every year, around the end of November, he put a rapid halt to everything even remotely resembling a relationship in his life. That kind of break up might make him appear cold hearted but in Sean’s opinion it was merely the easiest way out. Not his fault that everyone but him turned into hug-a-lot idiots, was it?

That the dumping routine didn’t happen this year was maybe due to the odd weather. It had been so mild outside that one could walk around in merely a sweater. When even the fucking birds firmly believed that this was the beginning of spring and never stopped chirping in the early morning, how was Sean to realise that it was not yet March?

The birds weren’t singing yet when Sean gradually woke from a deep dreamless sleep to the feeling of warm hands touching his stomach and his shoulder. He let himself be pushed onto his side and grunted quietly when Orlando’s hot and naked body pressed against his back. Orlando’s lips nuzzled his shoulder and his neck and a dark and soothing rumble poured over them onto Sean’s skin as one of Orlando’s thighs moved between his legs. He could feel the other man’s erection damply pressing against the small of his back. 

Sean grunted again, affirming that he was awake and demanding that, if he needed to interrupt his slumber in the first place, Orlando should get going. Orlando rolled on a condom, roughly pulled down the waistband of Sean’s sleeping pants and his continued rumble mingled with Sean’s long exhale when he lined up and pushed. 

Relaxed from sleep and still slick and open from before Sean’s body didn’t put up much resistance against being penetrated once more. The sensation of Orlando breaching him, filling him, the hot rush of adrenalin were almost too much for Sean’s mind, for once not on full alert, and he drifted and went under. Coming up and gasping for air he panted shallowly in rhythm with Orlando’s slow and deep thrusts. Sean fought to be able to open his eyes. To regain balance so he wouldn’t drown. 

His vision was blurred at first, not really a surprise, but then his eyes focussed on the dim light coming from the window. Rain in the shape of thick knitting needles hammered against it, forced to change its direction every few moments because a harsh wind disrupted it over and over. Even though it was already morning there was no real light, the sky was dark grey and heavily clouded.

Winter had arrived. Bloody December.

No way. No fucking way out anymore.

Suddenly fully awake Sean listened to the thrumming of the rain mingling with Orlando’s heavy breathing. He suffered under a brief out-of-body experience, feeling more confused and disoriented than before, like he’d been most rudely awoken. 

Orlando started thrusting harder now, fingers dug into his shoulder to hold him in place and shivers ran up and down Sean’s body from the precision of the younger man’s fucking. Cold shivers and Sean would have hugged himself if only he could have moved. As it were, he lay completely motionless, gripping the sheets hard. It were Orlando’s arms, not his own, that wrapped around his body and pulled him close. He felt the young man’s breath against his ear, he felt more than heard Orlando’s questioning grunt, responding to his unusual quietness. 

Sean closed his eyes and even though he knew that he couldn’t really shut out December and all its implications he reached behind himself and dug his fingers into Orlando’s thigh. Orlando hissed, rocked his hips and his lips smiled lopsidedly when Sean turned his head and kissed him. The younger man groaned into Sean’s mouth, torn between relief and annoyance and lust. His fist closed around Sean’s cock, wanking him off with the same brutal and satisfying efficiency with which he fucked him and made them both come. 

“Shit,” Orlando said breathlessly and pulled out, rolling onto his back. “I really should stop spending the night with you.”

A stabbing pain made Sean’s chest hurt before Orlando continued.

“You constantly fuck up my beauty sleep.”

“With what? Lying here and sleeping innocently?” Sean asked gruffly. 

Orlando got rid of the condom and laughed, “You and innocence go together like the Grinch and Christmas.”

“Bugger off and grab a shower, you pesky Christmas elf,” Sean growled and wiped his own come off his stomach before he pulled the blanket up again to go back to sleep for a few more hours. 

Determined to ignore the running shower and Orlando singing ‘Rudolph the red nose reindeer’ under it. 

Determined to ignore the pouring winter rain and the icy weather outside. 

Determined to ignore the unwelcome feelings gnawing on his insides like a brat eating away at fucking ginger bread.

On Christmas morning he received a call from his sister who reminded him to ring their mother. He called her, then fled his flat – as every year regretting its central location – and went for a walk. 

While the season was on its peak in the city the docks were quiet and the faint smell of fish hanging in the air was so decidedly unchristmassy that Sean found it liberating in the extreme. The freezing air for once didn’t bother him and he accepted a cold nose and cold ears gladly in exchange for a clear head with no room for any kind of nostalgia.

The worst would be over in under 48 hours and Sean actually liked the prospect of New Year’s Eve because he was all for getting plastered and developing more or less realistic plans for the future. Starting with a clean slate instead of dwelling on the past. Good strategy, that.

Still, when he returned some time in the afternoon, when the streets were already silent, he hesitated for a moment.

There was no shitawful music playing on the other side of the heavy steel door, so the chances were pretty high that Orlando hadn’t let himself in once again. Sean weighted the flat key in his hand, looking down at it contemplatively, and wondered whether he’d actually expected loud music when he had returned. 

Whether he’d hoped for it.

His flat was quiet and undisturbed, only the light of the answering machine blinked. He walked over to the cabinet with the whiskey and hit the “play message” button on the way.

„Hey Sean.”

The actor smiled when in Orlando’s voice amusement mingled with friendly teasing as he continued, “You really fled town then? Completely predictable, that’s what you are.”

If Orlando had been in the same room with him Sean would have replied with a two finger salute. As it was he poured himself a tumbler of Laphroaig. 

“Whatever, I’m calling for two reasons. My mum insists on inviting you over for the big feast. It earned me a lecture about political correctness and shit when I assured her that even you weren’t that much of a fag but –,”

Orlando stopped and Sean could vaguely hear a voice in the background, not too seriously chiding the young man. Predictably Orlando didn’t wait for the end of this interruption but cut in, obviously grinning broadly, 

“Oh, shut up, Mommy. I _am_ gay, so I can say fag and cocksucker and arse pirate and –,” 

A slapping sound was followed by a badly acted outcry of pain from Orlando. Indignation was undermined by laughter when Orlando talked to Sean again, 

“In case you ever wondered why I turned out like I did, it’s solely due to the upbringing.”

While there was laughter and protest in dolby surround in the background, Sean shook his head, still grinning, and sat down in his favourite armchair. 

The smile was still very present in Orlando’s voice when he spoke again but apparently he had left the rather crowded room to be able to talk without disturbance. 

“Anyway, second thing is that my grandparents own a flat in Whitby. It’s vacant for the next week or so and I’ll be going up for a bit of down time. Strolling along the shoreline, catching whales, making pretty necklaces out of sea shells, you get the drift.” 

The joking around was followed by the shortest of pauses. Not more than one would need to take a breath and yet it was the maximum amount of insecurity that Orlando would ever show. 

Then he said, “If you wanna come just give me a ring when you reach town. I’ll talk you through the bollocksed up roadways.”

Sean took a sip from his whiskey and stared at the blinking green light of the answering machine. Again, there was someone talking in the background but this time Sean didn’t attempt to understand what was being said. He waited until Orlando continued, his voice back to friendly irony.

“Look, I gotta go. Seems people here insist on celebrating some Jewish bloke’s birthday now. Nighty night.”

The answering machine beeped, signalling the end of the message. 

Sean exhaled and watched the whiskey rolling in a smooth circular wave as he moved the glass. 

Silence stretched. 

Even when he concentrated he couldn’t hear any Christmas commotion from the outside world that might have pestered and thankfully distracted him. 

Silence, but not really. It never was silent in his head, he usually could hear himself speaking his own thoughts. Commenting on life, reminding him of what was essential, just keeping him company. Only now it wasn’t his voice that kept talking even though nothing was to be heard in the room. 

_If you wanna come just give me a ring when you reach town._

When he raised his gaze he caught sight of himself in the black television screen. He actually quite liked looking at himself. Not primarily because he did think himself handsome. He was almost fifty and had been looking like it for quite a while now. Thanks to too much boozing and fucking, sleepless nights and exhausting jobs. He didn’t regret many of them but thought back to even less. 

He stared at the black screen, stared back at himself. There was the ever present gleam in his green eyes and as usually it was comforting that the bloke looking back at him always conveyed pride and self-assurance even if he also eyed him with a sort of unvoiced constant scepticism. Regarding himself, regarding proposals made towards him. But for once he didn’t try to deny that this wasn’t the only thing he saw nor wanted to see. 

Orlando dealt with the fact that he was extraordinarily beautiful the way Sean had expected him to, matter-of-factly. Oh aye, he didn’t hesitate to milk it for all it was worth when it could help him, job-wise or socially. He was handsome in full costume or completely drunk in the pub or with Sean’s come dripping from his lashes and his cheek. His beauty went without saying, just like his uncouth straightforwardness did and his strength and his stubborn solidity and – 

It somehow didn’t surprise him any more that even looking at himself in the mirror couldn’t distract him for long from thinking of Orlando. So much for much cared for vanity. He slid a little deeper into his armchair and let the malty taste of the whiskey curl around his tongue. 

_If you wanna come just give me a ring –_

No wonder that the image of himself had shifted into Orlando’s without him really noticing it when he could hear Orlando’s voice saying this over and over inside his head.

He had heard the unusual undertone of this. 

A sorta softness that was so untypical for Orlando that Sean for a second hadn’t been sure whether he’d heard it right. 

A sorta quietness that made it sound like Orlando was telling him a secret, one Sean was under no circumstances to tell anyone else. 

An undertone that was so fleeting and seemingly secondary and yet so loud and clear for Sean that he wondered what had altered. Maybe he’d just gotten so obsessed with Orlando that he suddenly could make out even the tiniest of changes with ease. Or maybe Orlando had decided that he would let Sean hear it.

_If you wanna come –_

Sean waited for cold shivers that would freeze him because there was nothing to hide behind this time, no possibility to ignore it and make it go away. Waited for terror to grip him, to wrap around his heart and his lungs like barbed wire, to make him snap in the panicked attempt to get rid of that feeling, of all feelings to be on the safe side. 

Nothing happened.

Sean’s hand only trembled slightly when he brought his tumbler up to his lips and downed the expensive whiskey without really tasting it. The liquid ran down his throat and burned a little at first but left a warm sensation that wouldn’t go away. 

He wasn’t stupid. He didn’t let his guard down so easily. So he remained sitting in his arm chair while dusk turned into darkness outside, didn’t move when church bells began to ring and stopped again. He just kept staring at his own reflection and willed himself not to back down. 

All that happened was that this warmth slowly spread through his entire body, pooled in his stomach and curled around his heart like a lover’s embrace. 

He wasn’t stupid. He knew that not even Laphroaig could have that much of an impact.

He was rude and proud, vain and arrogant. But he wasn’t stupid. 

And he wasn’t a coward.

He picked up the phone and dialled.

Four rings, then, “You’ve reached Orlando Bloom. Leave a message. It will be responded to if of relevance.”

For the moment it took for the message of Orlando’s answer phone to end with an encouraging beep, Sean thought about luck and bad luck, missed opportunities and Dutch courage.

“Hey,” he said and began with the easiest things.

“Thank your mom for the invitation from me. And it doesn’t surprise me the least bit that you manage to drive even the most peaceful woman to GBH. It’s not like you don’t deserve a spanking on a regular basis.” 

He paused, not so much a rhetorical pause but just enough time for Orlando to reply with a blatant ‘you offering?’ as Sean knew he would. 

He scratched his nose and continued with the same not-really-gruff tone of voice, “Oh and talk me through Whitby? There’s about one fucking road in that bloody town. How much of an idiot do you think I am?” 

Another stop since Orlando definitely would be commenting on that one. 

But Sean hesitated for a second longer than necessary. 

_If you wanna –_

He inhaled and breathing techniques learned long ago kicked in automatically. His voice sounded almost casual, almost nonchalant, almost as usual. 

“I’ll pick you up and we’ll go by car. If you want to, that is.”

A bleeding holiday together. In December. 

Christ. 

“Give me a call. And merry Christmas, Orlando.”

***

“Oi, Sean,” Alan, in full costume but speaking with his every day accent, waved down at Sean from the stage to catch his attention. “Dinner at my place on Friday. Remember to drop by.”

Of course Sean grunted his promise to come because dinner at Alan’s not only meant marvellous food but was traditionally followed by a piss-up of rather epic proportions, both of which Sean was a loyal fan of. Some states of satisfaction were easily enough to acquire.

It was some time around early noon, judging by the rumbling of Sean’s stomach. He sat in the middle of the theatre’s audience with his feet propped up on the backrest of the next row. The foil of the mini pack of vinegar crisps on his lap was rustling quietly whenever he fumbled with it, but he guessed that it wasn’t too loud to be disturbing and he was too peckish to resist.

Usually they spent most of the time on one of the specially equipped rehearsal stages on the upper floor which was closer to their every day dressing rooms. But today their director had them trying out this and that with space and sound on the real stage and Sean was too lazy to actually go back up or to the cafeteria. So he stayed here during his break, watching Alan and Emma filing on a dialogue. 

After speaking his last line in his scene with Sean Orlando had disappeared behind the stage instantly and without a word but now one of the side doors opened and he slipped in quietly. He slumped down next to Sean and instantly tried to snatch the older actor’s crisps from his lap. Sean growled softly and batted Orlando’s hand away. 

“Where have you been?” Sean asked with a low voice.

“Needed a smoke,” Orlando answered equally quietly, tried his luck with Sean’s crisps for a second time and, after failing, produced a roll of Mentos. “Man, I got really, really desperate the last fifteen minutes of that scene.”

“Quick and superficial satisfaction?” Sean chuckled because for once the younger man seemed to be able to sit remotely still and he knew that only a recent smoke could lead to that much temporary calmness in the other actor. Well, that or a good fuck. 

“It’s amazing how close to real fucking bliss a drag of a cigarette can bring you when you’re addicted,” Orlando agreed lightly. He leaned back in his seat, feet finding their place right next to Sean’s on the backrest and he regarded Sean with a sideward glance. “I’ve never considered stopping, though. Not longer than for a delusional minute anyway. You?” 

“No,” Sean replied almost indignantly as if the mere idea was more than ridiculous. But after a moment of silence he contradicted himself, “Well, once, but that didn’t count either.”

A smirk played around Orlando’s lips and not even trying to hide his curiosity he asked, “And why’s that? No change for fags?”

Sean shrugged and brought a crisp up to his mouth, pressed the salty treat against his palate with his tongue until it cracked. 

“Girlfriend was pregnant.”

“Oh,” Orlando shifted in his seat uncomfortably, like he was sitting bare arsed on a leather sofa. But his words revealed that he was well aware of what Sean was doing. “Go on then. I know you only let something like that drop because you find it extremely satisfying to watch me sweat.”

Sean didn’t bother to hide the grin that now tugged the corners of his mouth upwards. Another crisp and another taunt, following the easy rules of habitual banter, “Does it work?”

“‘Course it does. Who isn’t petrified of women with child?” Make belief gruffness darkened Orlando’s voice but the instant admittance made teasing him rather pointless. So Sean lost interest in it and handed Orlando his remaining crisps before he explained with a slight shake of his head,

“Well, turned out after six weeks she wasn’t really pregnant.”

Orlando grinned lopsidedly at Sean. “So much for the prospect of passing on your genes and knowledge.”

“And by that you mean that the world got lucky that I didn’t knock her up after all, yeah?” 

“But seriously, you know that these days they actually have tests to figure that out a little sooner, don’t you?”

“Don’t tell me,” Sean said with a hint of sarcasm. “She was just too craven to piss on that bloody stick. Silly bint.”

“Takes two to put one in the oven,” Orlando pointed out gleefully and Sean growled at the miniature lecture, however much deserved it might have been. But of course him being Orlando he didn’t stop there. 

He unwrapped another sweet and started chewing on it and his well acted friendly interest almost succeeded in covering up the amused mockery behind his words when he said, “I bet you’d make a lovely dad. All proud and pleased. So, how old would Seanie junior be by now?”

Seanie junior? A little carbon copy of himself, reaching puberty probably well before the usual age and making Sean’s life hell by forcing him to grow up after all? Dear Lord.

“Prolly ‘bout as old as you,” Sean answered evenly and added with a smirk, “Orli.” 

Orlando snorted, behaviour and frame of mind as far from the infantile sound of that nick name as possible. 

“Go and fuck yourself, Daddy,” he said. He emptied Sean’s crisps bag but not even he was suicidal enough to leave it on the seats for the cleaning staff to find but stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.

“You know,” Sean smiled, getting up because his break was over, “I would actually do that if it was anatomically possible. – Oh, quit bitching, Bernard! I’m coming!”

If Sean had kept a diary – which he fucking didn’t, thank you very much – he might’ve suspected Orlando secretly reading it. Because really, it was a bit weird that even weeks after a conversation, when in the meantime Sean’s mind had done the ruminant thing already which more often than not had lead him to something seemingly completely different, Orlando still would know what Sean was referring to. 

That it happened vice versa as well stunned Sean maybe even more. Like Orlando’s thoughts had moved in with his brain and had started redecorating without Sean’s knowledge. 

It was rather predictable that – Thursday, in the cafeteria – Sean sat down next to Orlando on the violet corner sofa and the younger man wasn’t surprised in the least when Sean stated,

“You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said ‘bout genes and knowledge. And I decided that it’s total bollocks.”

Orlando laughed and had a mouthful of coke. “Thanks ever so.”

“No, seriously,” Sean said and propped his feet up on the coffee table, smiling broadly in response to the scowl of two girls from make up, “I read an article on the loo that endorphins or summat fuck with your brain when you have kids. They simply erase all the miserable times you endure and make you believe, really _believe_ you’re totally happy. Wicked, huh?”

“Scary, more like,” Orlando grunted.

“Why’s that?” Sean asked with curiosity because Orlando’s tone of voice was different from their usual bantering.

The younger man shrugged and answered, “Because you’re being fooled by your own hormones?” He thought about it for a moment longer and fingered the sticker on his coke bottle. “Or maybe because I dislike the idea of my happiness depending on some little tosser. Dunno.”

Don’t know. Sean did know how to make himself happy. Orlando knew how to make himself happy, too, apparently. What did they need special endorphins for? Or kids? Or each other for that matter.

“I reckon,” Sean said contemplatively after a while and sipped from his mug of coffee, “I don’t like either option much. It comes down to freedom of choice, don’t it? And that’s lacking in both.” 

“What is lacking in both what?” Liv, appearing out of the blue, asked curiously and sat down between them or, to be more precise, half on Orlando’s lap. So much for having a proper conversation within the rush hour in the cafeteria.

“Sean’s wondering what to wear for Alan’s bash tomorrow,” Orlando wrapped his arms around her slender waist as if hugging a doll and lied easily, “and he thinks that he’d lack grace both in a striped cat suit as well as in full drag. Would you agree?”

Satisfaction. 

Itching and scratching that itch reflexively resulted in satisfaction. Quick and superficial, but delightful and easy. End of story.

It was a bit different when you craved something, thirsted for it and knew exactly how to quench that thirst within yourself. Didn’t mean you had to do it instantly. The awareness that you had it in your own hands because you _knew_ how to fulfil the craving, now that had potential. It lasted longer, went deeper, sparked that strange feeling that made you smile in the most inappropriate of situations and probably make a complete fool outa yourself. 

Like standing ovations after opening night were satisfying and good enough to make Sean hard, really. But the quiet knowledge that had hit him at the audition when he first had felt that he’d really grasped his character’s mood, no, even more, his _essence_ , the moment when he realised how to slip into his skin and knew how to act to make shivers run down everyone’s spine including his own. That was the real moment of power, of fulfilment. Of knowledge. Of happiness.

Satisfaction. Happiness. 

Friday evening at Alan’s and Sean figured someone had slipped Orlando a whole carton of sugar cubes, that giddy he seemed. Discussing theatre with more biting irony than usual, flirting with the predatory instincts shining through more often. Sean saw the keen glint in his dark eyes, heard his restless laughter, felt his edginess electrifying the air.

His own pulse quickened and his heart rate increased, he was close to sweating and really couldn’t bring himself to listen to any of Alan’s friends for longer than twenty seconds. He figured he needed a smoke. Rather badly.

The night was cold and bit Sean’s skin but the hot smoke curled calmingly in his lungs. The noise of the party was kept inside the house; the windows were closed against the cold, people behind the yellow curtains mere shadows. He leaned against the balcony’s banister, his lower arms resting on it, and he blew tiny white clouds over London’s roofs with every other exhale.

A hot body next to his own, too close to be polite, and of course it was Orlando whose elbow now touched his own. Sean looked over and saw the younger man smiling lopsidedly, a cigarette already dangling from his lips.

Sean didn’t speak and Orlando didn’t either. He inhaled and held his breath, waited for his body to suck all the nicotine it could get out of the rough smoke, exhaled and did it again. He finished his cigarette and immediately lit another on the gleaming tip of the first.

Again, Sean looked at him and found Orlando’s eyes even more restless, a small frown of frustration on his forehead, over satisfaction sought but not found. Sean tilted his head and moved a little closer.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, flicking his cigarette down onto the street below.

Orlando regarded him with a contemplative glance. “You don’t know?” he asked and it came out as a low rumble, a sensual purr mingled with a challenging growl, “How disappointing.”

Just like the smoke had curled in Sean’s lungs the sound of Orlando’s voice found its way into Sean’s body and pooled in his belly. The older man shook his head in response to Orlando’s statement. 

“I just like hearing you say it. I know what you want.”

Orlando’s eyebrow quirked up, clear interest not bothered to hide. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Sean confirmed slowly and shifted a little closer still. His shoulder was touching Orlando’s now and his voice reached the younger man’s ears even though he spoke quietly, almost conversationally. 

“You want me to yank down those effing low riding jeans of yours. You want to feel my prick against your naked skin.” 

Orlando chuckled softly, the shiver that ran over his skin audible in a little tremor in his silent laughter. The back of his hand brushed against Sean’s and the older man went on. 

“You want me to be really gentle when I breach you. Want to lean against the cool window ‘cause you’ll sweat when I fuck you.” 

Knowledge, unquestionable, because Orlando’s breath hitched when Sean said ‘sweat’ and ‘fuck’, short words hard in midst his evenly spoken sentence. Like bite marks in between sweet swipes of the tongue. 

“You want to have your eyes open and see the thin window glass and the flimsy curtain, knowing that this is all that’s between us and them, between this and exposure.” 

Sean had always known how much Orlando loved people to watch him, how much he enjoyed being beautiful just for the looks people gave him. Orlando now had closed his eyes, his shoulder was heavy against Sean’s, as he leaned close, pictured what Sean said, trusted him to know, to know about his wants. And Sean did. 

“You’ll want to lean back against me because your knees buckle when I give it to you rough just the way you like it,” Sean said. “You want to keep your eyes open so you can look at your own reflection and see what they would see if the curtains were drawn.” 

Beauty vulgarism a sweet smile a mocking sneer. Sean shifted a little, so his mouth was close to Orlando’s ear and he could smell him, could smell all Orlando’s thoughts that forced him to groan quietly when he could feel Sean’s voice against his skin. Sean licked his lips. 

“You want me to whisper your name when I shot inside you. Want to watch yourself come against that window.”

Orlando held his breath until Sean exhaled. He didn’t move until Sean rubbed his nose affectionately against that sensitive spot right behind his ear. He still had his eyes closed when Sean pulled back a little, and he said with a quiet and trembling voice, “You fucking bastard.”

Sean chuckled and took the small end of Orlando’s cigarette, stealing the last drag. “Good guess, eh?”

“Fucking feel what good a guess that was,” Orlando murmured and pressed his body against Sean’s, his erection hard, trapped between their thighs. Despite that his eyes met Sean’s with calmness now, brown eyes holding Sean’s gaze steadily and for once without a challenge glimmering in them. 

And in that calmness Sean found the counterpart to his knowledge. The ability to read his thoughts, to detect what defined wants and needs, that meant happiness. And it made sense that he suddenly cared for making someone else besides himself, cared for making Orlando happy. Because it felt like it were his own needs and wants. It bore the ability to make himself happy as a seeming side effect, and yet one that had so much impact on himself as hardly anything else that he’d ever done.

“You want a beer?” Sean asked eventually, “A cold one?”

Orlando grinned and nodded. “Fuck yes,” he agreed before he lead the way back inside.

Later that night Sean came from the kitchen and almost ran into Orlando in the darkish hallway. Feeling a little sloshed already, or maybe a little tired, Sean’s brain wasn’t really focusing on anything in particular but every nerve ending of his body snapped to attention when his arm brushed Orlando’s. Like they knew something that Sean wasn’t aware of. Like there was something he craved that he hadn’t even thought about before. And yet Orlando – 

“I know what _you_ want,” Orlando, still standing in Sean’s way, remarked with a low voice, stating a simple fact.

“Do you now?” Sean replied, acting nonchalant.

“Yeah,” Orlando answered with the same slow certainty that Sean’s voice had born earlier that night. Sean let himself be pushed back against the wall in the shadow and listened to Orlando’s revelation. 

“When we reach my place you want to go down to your knees and suck me off,” he whispered and pushed his groin against Sean’s. “Until I’m really, really close. Then you’ll lean back and look at me,” Orlando looked at him. “‘cause you want me to come all over your face.”

Sean’s mouth was dry. He wasn’t sure what to respond to that. Other than going down to his knees right then and there, that was. How could something be so playful and so serious? So bendable and so defined? So voluntarily and so fucking destined? 

“And you know why you want that?” Orlando asked the same question just in other words. “Because afterwards, when I jerk you off, I’ll lick it off.” His mouth was so close to Sean’s cheek that his breath was reflected by Sean’s skin. “Lick off every single drop of my mark on your skin. Like this.”

He closed the small distance between them. His hand was buried in Sean’s hair and the older actor held perfectly still when Orlando’s strangely wet and dry tongue swiped across his cheek once. Agonizingly slow it was and it left a fiery trail on Sean’s skin like Orlando’s mark was being burned into it, into him forever. 

Orlando didn’t pull back again and Sean didn’t move either, couldn’t move because he was afraid his knees wouldn’t hold his weight if he tried to. His hands found their way to their favourite spot, the small of Orlando’s back, and rested there, holding him, holding onto him. He could feel Orlando’s breath, feel his warm body pressed against his own, could feel Orlando’s being seeping into him quietly, smoothly, so uncharacteristically that he might have thought he was dreaming if it weren’t for the hot mark on his cheek.

They almost left after that. But then Emma started talking about latest developments in premier league and Liv finally found some dance music in Alan’s CD collection. How were Sean and Orlando to resist that? It wasn’t like they were in a hurry, like they were unsure what could and would come next, whenever ‘next’ would be. 

And then there was this poker game Sean had to play and that drinking challenge Orlando couldn’t miss out on. Eventually, some time and maybe even only when it was already dawn, everyone who hadn’t found their way home would drop down for a bit of shuteye on one of the comfortable brown leather sofas.

Sean woke from a coma like slumber because his back ached a little from sleeping on the couch and his head was sorta numb. He felt the rough denim of Orlando’s jeans against his left cheek, firm muscles comfortably warm underneath the fabric, legs propped up on the coffee table in front of the sofa. A little clumsily Sean brought his hand up to his head and found that Orlando’s fingers were curled around some of his blond strands. 

“Quit shifting about, you,” Orlando murmured with a sleep roughened voice and tugged at his hair, pulling Sean’s head a little further up into his lap. Then his hand fell still again and his breathing returned to deep and regular inhales of sleep. 

Sean chuckled and his hand closed over Orlando’s right kneecap in a mirroring touch of possessiveness. Orlando purred quietly in his sleep in response and Sean could feel his body relaxing because he understood the gesture and accepted it, returned it. Sean closed his eyes again and drifted back to sleep.

***

“Fuck, I’m gonna puke,” Orlando said and Sean slowly turned his head, arching a brow because everything else would’ve cost too much effort. 

“Huh?” he grunted, both enquiry and mockery. It wasn’t like they’d drunk that much alcohol. Or had they...?

“Seriously, I’m gonna be sick,” Orlando emphasised, pulling Sean out of his slightly tipsy (okay, completely shitfaced) contemplations. 

“Shouldna drunk tha’ much then,” Sean slurred and fuck, why did his tongue feel like, “a dead ferret in me mouth.”

Orlando blinked at him and then started to snigger and Sean realised that he must’ve said the last bit out loud.

“Says you, you lightweight,” Orlando said and kicked Sean, aiming for his shin but hitting his thigh. Still, quite the accomplishment, lying on his back on the couch and not falling off. “Oh,” he said and sat up, swaying slightly, “I got ya a present.”

Sceptically, Sean watched Orlando get up from the sofa and stumble towards the door where, ages ago, he’d dropped his jacket.

”I didn’ get ye anything,” Sean said, making it sound like an accusation. Which it was. What the fuck?

“I stole it,” Orlando replied solemnly, rummaging through his jacket. Sean nodded, because that was alright then. Orlando found his present and made his way back to the couch, flopping down on it and tossing a tiny parcel into Sean’s lap. Sean looked down at it as if it might bite him.

“Open it, you wanker,” Orlando urged and pushed himself up onto his elbows, watching Sean.

Sean picked up the parcel and held it in front of his face. “Why does it smell of fish and chips?” he asked and sniffed it doubtfully.

“Didn’t expect me to buy wrapping paper did you?” Orlando asked back and rolled his eyes (which almost caused him to fall off the couch after all). “You big pansy.”

“So, you wrapped yer stolen goods into the remains of your lunch?” Sean asked. "You're a cheap bastard."

“Yep,” Orlando confirmed. “Now, open it.”

It took Sean a bit to get the slightly greasy wrapping off of the tiny object – hand/eye coordination not the best with approximately a litre of rum sloshing about in his veins. He frowned when he finally succeeded and brought the small figure right up in front of his eyes.

“It’s a fucking angel,” Sean said dumbfoldedly and held the offending object by one of its wings.

“Not just any angel,” Orlando said gleefully. “Look closer, mate. The blond hair, the square jaw? The downcast mouth?”

“You painted the latter on with a black marker,” Sean pointed out, still staring at the little angel in white.

“True,” Orlando admitted instantly, “but the rest, just like I found it on that tree in front of Harrods. It totally looks like you, mate.”

“Fuck off,” Sean slurred and held the angel upside down to see whether underneath the white shirt it was wearing it actually had proper male parts. It didn’t.

“Merry Christmas,” Orlando replied, even his acting skills not able to cover up the grin on his face, “my angel.”

“I think,” Sean said slowly, “I’m gonna be sick.”

***

_… All in all? Throughout the play I wasn’t sure whether it was supposed to be a parody or not. Never a good thing._ R. Watkins

“A frigging parody,” Sean muttered, lips tight and not only because they had to hold up his fag. “I give the bloody bastard Watkins a parody.”

He folded up the newspaper with too much force, a few of the brownish pages tearing slightly under the rough treatment, and tossed it onto the cafeteria table.

“I suppose,” Alan said with so much calm that really, Sean wanted to spill his remaining coffee over the fellow actor’s trousers, “this is not the time for a critical self assessment then?”

Everyone around the table exchanged looks, glares in Sean’s case.

“Well,” Liv chirped in, “we shouldn’t take this too seriously, should we? I mean, Watkins never liked us, did he?” Sean’s imagination switched from late afternoon coffee spilling to snapping necks, particularly those of black haired oblivious lasses with a giggle instead of depth. His glare silenced her and for a moment she looked a bit confused but then shrugged it of, the easy contentment of the dimwitted, really.

“’Bean was too loud, too obvious, plainly too much’”, Bernard’s deep voice quoted from memory. “At least he did mention you – was I actually on stage yesterday?”

There was a smile playing around Emma’s lips and Alan chuckled softly as the white haired actor threw his arms in the air in exactly the overdone kind of drama they were being accused of in the review.

“Yeah, you were,” said Orlando, his chair see sawing dangerously on its hind legs, “you kept stepping on my feet.”

Bernard picked up the newspaper and swatted the younger man with it, which caused him to nearly fall of his chair and curse a blue streak before throwing chips at Bernard. Sean’s head started to hurt.

There you were, rehearsing and working your fucking arse off and for what? For some bloody idiotic critic who prolly couldn’t even find his way out of the theatre on his own to throw shit at you. He didn’t really know why he bothered. Hell, he didn’t know why he cared either. It wasn’t like this was the first crushing review ever.

_’too loud, too obvious, too much’_

The banter between Bernard, Orlando and Liv stopped when Sean pushed his chair back noisily and got to his feet.

“Where you’re going?” asked Alan. “I don’t think that more rehearsing is in order for the rest of the afternoon.”

Bernard leaned over and said in a stage whisper. “Off to the props to get that broadsword.”

Emma just shook her head and started on her second piece of cake. That tiny part of Sean’s brain that occasionally was up for a pact with reason whispered that they all had their way of dealing with it. 

“Piss off, you two,” he growled anyway. 

Bernard arched his left brow, Alan his right and Liv’s huge eyes grew a bit bigger yet.

“C’me on, mate,” Orlando said, got up and stretched. His pullover was pulled up and revealed the rim of red boxer shorts and a tanned belly. “I’ll buy you a pint.”

Sean knew a distraction when he saw one, ‘specially when it was that bloody obvious. Free alcohol as consolation, fucking Prozac for blokes, how stupid did Orlando think he was?

“Fine,” Sean replied. “You actually have money?”

Orlando patted his ass, wallet stuffed into his back pocket. “Yeah. Though knowing you’re a bottomless pit I’ll prolly have to whore myself out to the bartender to pay for the tab.”

The fact that this actually tugged at the corners of Sean’s mouth didn’t mean anything. 

They started at their local, a couple of pints and Sean was still coming up with new creative ways to torture Robert fucking Watkins, the damn critic. ‘Could wrap his innards round a sharp stick like they did it in India or somewhere’, was all Orlando said, slouched on the barstool next to him, chin resting in his palm. 

Sean didn’t really keep track of where they went next, or the place after that, but somehow he ended up, system pretty soaked with bitter, at a table in a shabby pub round somebody else’s corner. Silent now, yeah okay, brooding and staring at the ceiling. There was music playing, live maybe even, and the indistinct chatter of people flooding around him. And still he couldn’t get the damn words out of his frigging head.

“For fuck’s sake,” Orlando’s voice, over the chitchat of the pub, and Sean’s eyes came down from the ceiling to witness the fellow actor get up from his chair – swaying only lightly. “Let’s get this over with then.” 

Sean watched as Orlando grabbed his still half full glass (never leave booze behind you already paid for) and headed towards the exit of the pub. Half way there, he looked over his shoulder and practically had to shout over the music and the noise, “You’re coming or what?”

Beer glasses in hand they stumbled out of the pub and as per usual the cold night air sobered Sean up enough to be able to walk straight, or the closest thing to that anyway. 

“Where’re we going?” He slurred, voice by far not as sober as he thought it should be. Orlando snorted, a distinctly unattractive sound even to a jumbled mind, and didn’t reply. But his steps were sure, his mind set and Sean really was too drunk to argue. 

They crossed the river, walked and after a few streets they ended up in front of a quaint little house in a quaint little neighbourhood. Grass cut with nail scissors, bloody trimmed rose bushes. One of those places you can’t help but want to vomit onto even if you’re stone-cold sober. Orlando sat down on a half high wall, surrounding control freak paradise, and sipped on the remains of his bitter. Sean slumped down next to him.

“If you’re thinking of buying a place here,” he said, “I’ll get ye naked garden gnomes for the house warming.” 

“Shut up,” Orlando said, his eyes firmly fixed on the front yard on the other side of the road. “I’m thinking.”

“Huh,” Sean grunted and drunk the rest of his pint in silence. He turned the empty glass in his hand before throwing it behind him. It brought a smirk to his lips when he heard it quietly shattering, presumably on someone’s driveway.

It was cold but the alcohol and Orlando’s shoulder next to his were warm, his mind was dulled by being angry for too long, a gentle thudthudding like a masochistic version of rocking the cradle. Sean only realised that he was about to doze off when Orlando, suddenly, spoke again.

“Right,” he said. “Plan of action. Version A: Sneak up the drive and urinate on the doormat. Not very inventive but quite neat regarding the cost-benefit analysis.”

Sean blinked. If this was a dream, this was a damn weird one.

“Huh?” he asked, nudging Orlando’s shoulder, mostly because he wanted to test whether he was really there.

“Or,” Orlando went on, ignoring him for the moment. “Version B: We just lean on the doorbell until he opens and give him a bit of a kicking. Would require being able to run fast after, though.” He finally turned his head and gave Sean an assertive once over. “You up for that? To be honest, I think I might be a tad sloshed.”

“What are you talking about?” Sean asked and shook his head

Orlando looked at him like a teacher would at a particularly slow child.

“This,” he gestured vaguely to the other side of the road, “is Robert Watkins’ house.” And as if that explained everything he got up from his place on the wall, carefully set his empty glass onto the stone and started fiddling with his button fly. “I vote for plan A. I need to piss anyway.”

Sean reached out and halted Orlando’s hands’ actions right before they reached into his loose baggy trousers to get his cock out. 

“You want to piss on Robert Watkins’ doorstep?” He asked slowly, trying to get his head around it. Orlando, still trying to get to his dick, regarded him with a ‘well duh’ expression. “Because of the review?”

“Well,” Orlando shrugged and momentarily let Sean’s hands hold his own. “Pissed you off, didn’t it? Only fair to reply in kind.”

Sean looked up at Orlando, standing in front of him in the middle of the night, moon and/or streetlights making his straight features shine dimly. He got to his feet, a slight tug from Orlando’s hands helping but the other man didn’t move backwards, pulled him closer if anything. Sean leaned his forehead against Orlando’s, an unconscious tap tapping of impatient fingertips against his hands.

He snuffled once before pulling back. “Bet you that my bladder holds more than yours.”

“Show off,” Orlando replied fondly before they quietly moved towards the house, Sean’s hands on his fly, two suppressed chuckles echoing in the empty street.

***

Sean’s grandmother once had said that life was a photo album full of precious snapshots. Sean only remembered that particular sentence – usually having been far too busy trying to pilfer biscuits from the tea table as a lad – because his sister repeated it on every other occasion. Particularly when she wanted to force him to look at actual photos with her.

Sean didn’t really get the fascination with photos – real or metaphorical ones. Sure, he had a few clippings from the papers that announced some of his plays. Sure, he was as vain if not more so as every other actor on the planet. But he got to look at his own face in the mirror every morning and what did he care how it had looked like twenty years ago. And he figured if he wasn’t even interested in pictures of himself, how should the snapshots of any other person be of any fascination to him.

His sister would roll her eyes at him and force him to look at stupid baby pictures of her boys anyway, because that’s what sisters do. Sometimes she gave him some of the better, not out-of-focus ones of her eldest, Sean’s godson, with him. Uncharacteristically dutifully he kept them in an old shoebox together with the clippings and the rest of his old school reports (the few he hadn’t lost over the years).

So much for the actual pictures, the ones that got frayed around the edges and lost some of their colour over the years. It was probably the same with memories, the metaphorical snapshots as it were, and your mind added stuff to it, photoshopped some of the less pleasant details away, especially when they were shared recollections. Trips down memory lane seldomly included “Ah, yes, do you remember the time I caught you in bed with that other girl and screamed at you for two hours straight?”, did they. Not that Sean would ever sit down with that particular lass to reminisce anyhow. So, what were blurry half truths worth?

It didn’t matter whether the next day or week he’d wake up with someone else in his bed, whether Orlando would wink at him at the next premier before he got off with some blonde. Hadn’t mattered when they’d done so in the past either.

Sean never thought about Orlando when he wasn’t there. Orlando never said any of that crap that was supposed to give you sleepless nights. If he wanted something (or someone) he’d take it, maybe tell Sean about it before, maybe not and not once had he expected anything else from Sean either. Whatever Sean did, there wasn’t a small version of Orlando on his shoulder, staring at him disapprovingly. And even though he pissed Sean off on a regular basis – hell, he probably was the one person that Sean could hate with so much passion – they’d always kiss-and-make-up. Well, Brawl-fuck-and-make-up anyway.

Sean’s mind was completely wrapped around Orlando when he was there. No time to sit back and write down ‘moments in which I was so happy’ on an artistic coaster or whatever shit. Not when he spent all his energy on proving Orlando wrong (Prefering Tybalt over Mercutio? Come on.), shouting at him and watching his eyes turn black in rage right before he bellowed back. Not when Orlando’s rough no-nonsense touch made every cell of Sean’s body growl with want, not when his shouts of pleasure and pain could make Sean come inside him just as surely as dirty secrets exposed by his murmur next to Sean’s ear, his cock deep inside Sean.

Sean woke and blinked at the ceiling before his sleepy body reacted to his will. He rubbed his eyes and snuffled, listened to the even snores from his right. Reminded himself to never again take Orlando home with him when he’d boozed heavily. 

He rolled onto his side and looked at the other man’s hard features for a moment, self confidence only slumbering within the lithe body but present as always. When he raised his hand and nudged Orlando’s shoulder lightly, his fingers lingered on naked skin for a moment longer. His eyes had already drifted shut again when Orlando grunted in his sleep and shifted to his side, quietening momentarily, his breath warm against Sean’s face.

"What dares the slave," Orlando's voice was rough with sleep and Sean's eyes fluttered open again, "to fleer and scorn at my dormancy? Now, by the stock and honour of my kin, to strike him dead, I hold it not a sin."*

"I will bite thee by the ear for that jest**," Sean murmured back and added, "and it's 'solemity' not 'dormancy', you philistine." 

He caught Orlando's hand when the younger man sluggishly reached out to shove him. Without opening his eyes Orlando attempted to draw back his arm again and when Sean didn't let go and the motion brought them closer together yet he grunted, undecided whether to be pleased about that. Still, he didn't pull back when Sean couldn't resist the lure of his exposed neck and leaned over to make good on his promise. 

The younger man tilted his head a little further, giving him better access even, but rumbled stubbornly, "Mercutio still is a ponce."

"Shut up already," Sean huffed, biting Orlando's earlobe. "I'm trying to get some shuteye here."

Orlando snorted and his hand sneaked between Sean's legs, cupping his half erect cock. "Yeah, right. And Tybalt doesn't make you randy at all."

"You do," Sean chuckled and pushed into Orlando's hand. Returning the favour, his fingers wrapped around hard flesh. Orlando groaned, both in response to the lack of subtlety and the touch, and started moving his hand.

Drunken chuckles, gasps, drawn out groans. 

Sound of skin against skin, wet strokes, stuttered breaths, hitched moans. 

A moment of utter silence and then Orlando let go and wiped his hand on Sean's pyjama pants, stiffling a snicker.

"Wanker," Sean grunted.

"It's not like you're gonna remember any of it in the morning," Orlando murmured with a smile in his voice, already drifting off again.

And Sean probably wouldn't. Which was just as well for him, really.

***

Contrary to popular belief, there were actually quite a few things that Sean liked. Acting, sex, and footie, but that goes without saying; who doesn’t. Beer, Fish’n’chips, and a stroll were the next best thing; and all three were the reason why he was in a pretty good mood when he walked through Hyde Park after a morning spent shopping with his sister’s spawn of hell aka his godson. 

Two plastic bags dangled from his wrist as he searched for a remotely quiet spot to sit down and eat. Of course on a sunny day like this, the benches were all occupied, so Sean crossed the lawn, strolling pasts picnic blankets and folding chairs, past people eating, chatting, playing footie. 

He almost stumbled over Orlando, napping on his back right in the middle of it all. The younger man had his long legs bent, and with his arm raised to cover his eyes, his t-shirt had ridden up a little. For a moment Sean unashamedly let his gaze linger on dark hair below his belly button and the tattoo, nestling against his hipbone, then he nudged the toe-cap of Orlando’s sneaker. 

“Hey. You finally got kicked out of your flat for breach of the peace?”

“Fuck off,” Orlando answered, without much heat, and blindly kicked out for Sean’s shin. “It was _your_ bellowing that fetched the coppers.”

Sean chuckled quietly and he could see Orlando’s mouth curling into a smile as well. 

“Mind if I sit?” He asked and waited for a reply. There was nothing as annoying as people asking that question when already sitting down. It was like slowing down for a second, right in the middle of fucking someone, to ask, ‘hey, this is consensual, right?’.

But Orlando raised his left hand in a lazy wave of agreement, so Sean slumped down next to him. He untied the sloppy knot of the plain white bag, unpacked his chips, put the beer can down next to him. Orlando’s nose crinkled as he sniffed in the smell of grease and fish. He didn’t sit up but turned his head to squint at Sean.

“You want some?” 

Orlando shook his head and closed his eyes again, head turned slightly, so the sun just missed his features. The small frown on his forehead evened out when he stilled again. Sean shrugged, started to eat, plastic cutlery bending a little under the assault.

Two dogs played on a bit of unoccupied lawn. Barking excitedly they chased each other between the sunworshippers and picnickers. Their owners ignored the rampage, too busy smoking and chatting, on the bench closest, and didn't notice when the smaller one started humping the other excitedly. Sean grinned around a mouthful of chips when they eventually caught sight of the free show and dragged the mutts apart and away, cussing loudly. 

It took about two minutes until their bench was occupied again, by a young redhead this time. Breasts a nice handful and a pouty mouth; Sean picked up his beer and appreciated the view. Well, for the first few minutes at least, until she dug out her mobile and started hacking into it, jaw working so furiously on a chewing gum, it might just give you a nervous twitch. Sean's eyes strayed but were called back to the girl when she shouted out loud to a bloke coming closer. He had barely reached the bench when she started bitching. Happy to be at a safe distance, Sean took another sip of beer, watched the drama unfold, and snickered quietly.

"Fucking hell," Orlando muttered beside him, "can't they keep their effing voices down?"

"It's a reenactment of War of the Roses," Sean said, amused by Orlando's growling. "Show a little support for novices."

Orlando grunted when he pillowed his head on his arm to have a better view. He lightly nudged Sean’s thigh and without looking at the younger man, Sean handed him his beer. An awkward slurping sound told him that Orlando didn’t bother to sit up to drink while he watched. 

Sean figured the redhead might as well be right in her accusations, but that still wasn’t really reason enough to scratch his eyes out, was it? It made her unattractive in the worst kind of ways; however much Sean was all for spontaneous outbursts of violence, jealousy wasn’t really his preferred cause.

His beer was parked on Orlando’s chest, the younger actor’s fingers curled possessively around it, and only reluctantly they gave up their hold. Their eyes met over its rim as the redhead’s shouts reached their peak. His other woman was an utter bitch, the betrayal hurt so bad, he was a piece of shit and just not worth it. Orlando rolled his eyes, the hard line of his lips softened by a crooked smile. 

“I fucked Kim from lighting last weekend,” Sean said. His voice was interlaced with quiet tension, he bit his lower lip, and only after a moment he met Orlando’s gaze. The younger man arched his right brow and regarded him with graveness, but Sean couldn’t help but give up and grin at the obvious pity in his eyes.

“Mate, worst mimic ever. And you call yourself an actor? _They_ ,” Orlando gestured vaguely at the fighting couple, “sell the emo better than you.”

“Ouch,” Sean gripped his heart but ignored the insult otherwise, returning to his weekend activity. “I have, though.”

The redhead’s curses turned into sobs now, interwoven with his vows of amendments. Orlando took the luke warm beer from Sean’s hand.

“Well, who hasn’t?” 

It usually annoyed Sean when he couldn’t piss off Orlando with one sentence only – it was a game, played vice versa as well, and they both knew it. But admittedly, some random fuck wasn’t really the best of baits. So, his voice wasn’t really shirty when he remarked, “Is there someone in this town you _haven’t_ screwed, you little slut?” 

“I’m pretty certain,” Orlando answered, smugness in his voice, “I didn’t do _her_.” And again, he gestured towards the redhead who was currently blowing her nose in his gallantly handed handkerchief. A tight embrace, fingers running through copper curls as whatever promises were made, whatever reassurances, comforts were offered. Orlando snickered, the accompanying smile no longer soft but amused and just that side of unkind that it seemed more natural. 

“Figured as much,” Sean chuckled. Besides the obvious reasons she wasn’t exactly Orlando’s type (if you could call ‘anything with a heartbeat’ a type). 

The younger man shook the empty can, then peeked into it for good measures, and sighed ostentatiously. “Don’t tell me you came to the park with one single beer. Isn’t there more in that bag of yours?”

Sean looked down at the second bag at his knees. “Nah, that’s socks.” 

“You spent your free day shopping for socks?”

“What, you knit yours yourself then?” Sean shook his head, not really about to defend his quality time activity. “What are _you_ doing round these parts of town?”

For the fraction of a second Orlando seemed to hold back, a habit, an automatism, then he just turned his head back, and shielded his eyes again. “My physio is round the corner.”

Sean merely grunted in response. He lay back on his elbows, the grass soft against his naked skin, and the air smelled of the garlic bread the family next to them was eating.

After he once had (rather frantically) searched for condoms in Orlando’s bathroom cabinet, he’d found his arsenal of pills. ‘Broke my back once,’ Orlando had said from inside the shower. ‘Rubbers are up left, you blind sod.’ And even someone as admittedly self involved as Sean couldn’t have overlooked the fucking huge scar that ran down Orlando’s back.

Someone once said that scars gave people character. They were proof of a life well lived, or mistakes you made, or fate. They reminded you of how fragile the human body was, how easily you might just be gone, how much time and support, faith and strength it took to heal. 

Most of that, of course, was melodramatic bollocks. Orlando's scar, ragged and uneven, was ugly and insensitive to touch. If Sean'd wanted an orientation how to lick down Orlando's back, he'd bloody well have used his spine. That scar held the potential to trigger all kinds of awkward thoughtfulness, and Sean wasn't sure who'd have hated that more, he or Orlando. 

The bitter taste of beer still lingered on his lips even as he licked them. Orlando lay still beside him but the fact that he wasn't snoring loudly was proof enough that he wasn't asleep. Sean caught himself staring at his mouth and, without thinking about it, he licked the corner of his own, as always instinctively tempted by the too thin lips, pressed tightly together now. 

“Stop staring at me,” Orlando murmured, voice thick.

“How’d you know if I was?” Sean replied. “You got your fucking eyes closed.”

“Just quit it, you pervert,” Orlando repeated simply.

Sean shifted, winced when his elbows, having held him up for too long, protested against the movement, and pushed himself into a sitting position again. He brushed stray blades of grass from his arms and flexed his shoulders a little to get the kinks out, all motion not really able to get the return of restlessness out of his bones. The habitual glance at his watch told him he’d been here the better part of two hours already. 

“I reckon, I’m off,” he decided. 

Orlando’s eyes were on him as he gathered his bags and got to his feet. He stood in the sun’s path, shading the younger man’s features, their hard lines not really a contrast to the nod of acknowledgement, the natural curve of his mouth. 

“There’s a match on,” Sean said, invitation not in his words, but his voice.

Orlando’s eyes flared up with interest for a second, before something forced it down to indifference. He pushed himself onto his elbows, telltale signs of discomfort just barely visible. “Nah –,” he grunted. The sound hung in mid air as if it half expected to be ordered back again. “Don’t think I’m in the mood.”

Two hours minimum. Sean’s elbows still felt a little sore. Shopping for socks, seeing your physio, what ways to spend your day off.

“C’me on, you lazy arse,” Sean said and held out his hand. “I got beer in the fridge.” 

Orlando tensed when Sean helped him up, but his grip was strong and without hesitation.

***

They’d barely reached their dressing room, when Sean started to laugh out loud.

“Gotta agree with Bernard – I think it’s great,” he mocked and Orlando looked like he felt the urgent need to smack him. 

“Piss off,” the younger actor grunted and slammed the door shut with unnecessary force.

Sean looked shocked and even clasped his hand over his mouth. 

“No, you wouldn’t. How could such a chivalrous, noble –“ Orlando’s hand connected with Sean’s shoulder, but it merely made Sean laugh harder and continue, “Don’t tell me you don’t love it. That part? Will get you lots of skirt.”

Sean knew that Orlando was self involved enough to appreciate an audience’s applause to an extent that might border on sexual arousal, but right now Orlando glowered at the script their director had handed him and didn’t look all too convinced. Sean thought it his duty to rub it in a bit more, of course.

“I can already picture it clearly. The announcement posters with you, doe eyed, and they read ‘O. Bloom – romantic lead’.”

Orlando started to growl and rolled up the loosely bound assembly of papers in his hands in obvious irritation. 

“Shut up or I’ll make you.”

Which of course was enough reason for Sean to clasp him on the shoulder amiably and add,

“And think of all the girls waiting backstage for you, fainting when they see you and asking you to impregnate them.”

Orlando swatted him over the head with his rolled up script, before tossing it carelessly onto the make up drawer. 

“How can they ask for that when they’re unconscious, dimwit?” he asked back, glaring at Sean.

Sean ignored this slight flaw in his logic in favour of laughing even harder. Orlando was handsome enough for the part and could be a real charmer if there was something in it for him. But rather than of Bambi, his eyes reminded Sean more of a pissed off Doberman, now and always – Orlando definitely was no material for a classical hero straight out of romance novels. Sean leaned back against the nearest wall and when he could talk again, he pleaded in a high pitched voice, 

“’Oh, Orli, pleeeease deflower me!’”

Orlando shook his head but there was a hint of a grin on his lips when he said, “Aren’t I, like, eons to late for that?”

“’Bout thirty five years,” Sean agreed, in his own voice now, but still added a hand over his heart and an exuberant batting of eyelashes to his impersonation of a thirteen year old girl. The other man kicked Sean’s feet apart so he could stand between them, hands in his pockets. 

“Man, you must be really thankful that you’re not a woman,” Orlando remarked contemplatively and his hard eyes raked over Sean’s face as they’d done a thousand times before. “Because that would make you an old and fairly ugly slut.”

Sean hooked both his index fingers in Orlando’s belt loops. 

“I’d make a shit woman alright. You on the other hand –“

“For fuck’s sake,” Orlando laughed in exasperation. “What does it take to shut you up?”

“Ye really don’t know?” Sean asked, arching an eyebrow. He tugged Orlando a bit closer, already feeling him half hard against his thigh.

The amusement instantly made way for arousal, and Orlando leaned in enough for his mouth to almost touch Sean’s when he growled,

“Get on your knees then, bitch.”

Sean did his own bit of invading private space and smirked when Orlando pulled his head back to avoid being kissed.

“Make me, Romeo,” he all but purred.

Orlando wouldn’t have needed the prompt, as he was already between Sean’s legs. A shift in his stance, his knees knocking against Sean’s, made them buckle a bit. Sean shoved Orlando, hand splayed over his chest, but not with any real force. Not with the same intention behind it that Orlando’s hand on his shoulder had, heavy and purposeful , while his other was already working on his fly.

“I’m gonna fuck you after,” Sean said, voice low, almost conspiratorial, causing Orlando to tighten his grip as he pushed him down to his knees. Sean’s own hands rested on his thighs and he looked up at Orlando, fly already open, reaching for his cock. “Yer nice and tight when you’ve just come. Make noises like a sweet little virgin, too.”

“Porn star,” Orlando grinned, his fingers curling around Sean’s neck just so as he held him back for the moment it took him to stroke himself to full hardness. 

“Heartthrob,” Sean replied, tongue darting out to moisten his lips. He laughed when Orlando dug his sharp fingernails into his flesh punishingly, pushed the blunt head of his cock against Sean’s lips.

***

“Nononono, you’re doing it all wrong, man,” Orlando protested and tried to elbow Sean out of the way. Sean held on tight however, one hand firmly on the handle, the other on the bottle in his hand.

“Shurrup, I know what I’m doin’,” he growled and carefully tilted the bottle until its content started pouring out. When it hit the bottom of the large cooking pot, a darting flame shot up and nearly singed Sean’s eyebrows. 

“Bloody hell!” he exclaimed and staggered back from the stove, bottle of rum clutched to his chest.

Orlando leaned heavily against the fridge but still had problems in staying upright – to equal proportions due to the alcohol already inside his belly as well as his laughing fit. Sean glared at him and the offending stove before repeating, 

“Shut up or I’ll cut you off.”

Orlando snuffled and swallowed audibly, but a few bubbles of laughter still climbed their way out of his throat.

“Told you it wouldn’t do to turn on the fucking stove and then pause for a shag. Not when there’s nothing in the fucking pot,” he chided before pushing himself away from his support, wobbling only a little as he made his way towards the stove. “Sometimes I wonder how you survived this long, you stupid man ape.”

Sean seriously contemplated kicking Orlando in the (currently so conveniently turned towards him) arse for that but he wasn’t sure whether his slightly rum soaked sense of balance would agree with standing on one leg. 

“Fuck off. Didn’t want it to boil over, did I?” he said and took a gulp directly from the bottle.

“Stop shortening the supplies,” Orlando ordered and carefully put the overheated pot into the sink in order to let it cool off. He then placed a second pot on the hot plate (the smaller and only other one he owned), picked up his own bottle and stretched his hand out behind himself. 

“Gimme your rum.”

A bit reluctantly, Sean handed Orlando the liquor and stepped up behind him to peek over his shoulder. The younger man expertly emptied both bottles at once into the pot until it was filled to three-quarters. Then he grunted in satisfaction before licking the last remaining drops from the bottles’ necks.

“There.”

“The pot’s too small, you prat,” Sean said and picked up an oversized soup ladle with which he lightly slapped Orlando.

“Fuck you, it’s not,” Orlando huffed and half turned to face the older man.

“How’re you gonna fit all the other-“ Sean frowned, trying to remember the recipe, “- stuff in there, huh?”

Orlando’s look was nothing short of scandalized. Protectively he stood in front of his pot of rum that already started making sizzling noises.

“Other stuff?!” he repeated, slightly slurrishly. “You’re not gonna desecri… dessicra… cock up my punch!”

Orlando looked like he was more than willing to defend the stove with the two bottles still held in his hands, but Sean was nothing if not a brave man.

“It’s not fucking punch,” he growled. “Punch is Indian or summat for ‘five ingredients’, dimwit. There needs to be,” he scratched his head with the ladle’s handle, “I dunno, sugar and tea or something in there.”

Orlando crossed his arms in front of his chest, bottles clicking in the process.

“You’re seriously gonna tell me that you want to turn my New Year’s bash into a fucking tea party? Way to ruin my rep.”

Yeah, right. Because Orlando otherwise was the perfect party host – one that was already hammered before the guests even had arrived. Sean might have to admit that he hadn’t been completely uninvolved regarding that. But really, what else was there to do on the afternoon of fucking New Year’s Eve? Write a list of good intentions? Yeah, right.

“That’s not punch,” Sean repeated and with the spoon in his hand wildly gestured at the stove behind Orlando. “It’s a pot full of hot rum!”

Orlando snatched the ladle from Sean’s hand and stared at him wide eyed. 

“Exactly. What the hell is wrong with that?!”

“Huh,” Sean grunted. “Good point actually.”

Orlando rolled his eyes ostentatiously before he returned to his cooking project. The rum was not yet boiling but it had started to heat up enough to smell delicious. Sean came closer again, lured by the smell, and his hand rested lightly in the small of the younger man’s back. Orlando dipped the large ladle into the brownish liquid, his tongue sticking in the corner of his mouth.

And in a rather good mimic of the perfect housewife – if you ignored the fact that they were both only partially dressed (Sean really needed to find his trousers again before party started) and the fact that he was cooking pure high percentage alcohol and not home made gravy – Orlando held up the full ladle and ordered,

“Open up.”

“’Tis pisswarm booze, what’s there to season?” Sean grunted but obediently opened his mouth and let Orlando pour the hot liquid past his lips. 

Ignoring his comment, Orlando fixed his slightly feverish but intense stare on Sean’s face, waiting for a reaction.

“Suppose,” Sean said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Suppose it needs a bit more –“

Orlando glared at him but Sean smiled, overly sweet.

“- rum.”

Orlando’s frown turned into a broad grin and he nodded in approval, raising the ladle to his own lips now. 

“Good man! I’ll drink to that.”

Needless to say that, when the first guests finally arrived, there was none of the punch left. Orlando lay passed out on the couch in his living room, snoring like a freight train, while Sean still was in search of his trousers.

***

Sean groaned, defeated. He just barely managed to compile the energy to roll himself off of the other man, get rid off the condom and throw a heavy arm over his face. “You fuck like a pro.”

“Piss off,” Orlando grunted. 

“No kidding,” Sean said, staring up at the ceiling of Orlando’s bedroom, “ever thought about changing profession?” He looked over to Orlando’s side of the bed from under his arm, air thick with stale sweat between them. Orlando was drawing idle circles onto his own naked chest with fingernails that would be perfect to scratch Sean’s skin, sex drying and itching on it, nerves still crawling under it, not completely satisfied. “Good money on the game, too.”

“Like you’d pay for it, you cheap prick,” Orlando laughed and his hand crept lower, down his chest to the beginning of his pubic hair. He glanced up, reassuring himself of Sean’s attention, and traced the line of his own soft cock with his index finger. It twitched instantly, filling with blood again, even though the spunk on Orlando’s belly hadn’t even dried yet. 

“Didn’t say I would. Pimp gets freebees, doesn’t he.” 

Orlando snorted, not rising to the bait, and stretched while his fingertip was still teasing his cock back to hardness. He groaned raunchily, a sound followed by a chuckle when Sean huffed in disbelief. Still, no matter how overdone the fake porn sounds, Sean’s breath burned in his lungs despite the cold March temperatures. 

Orlando’s cock continued twitching, fuller and thicker now as it stood up, ready to be put to use. And just when he was fully erect again – that size that fit so perfectly into Sean’s mouth, choking him just so – Orlando stopped. Just bloody stopped. He rolled onto his side, facing Sean, and propped his head up on his hand, smiling at him.

“So, ‘bout that question”, he prompted conversationally, as if his cock wasn’t rock hard and leaking a thread of precome onto his sheets. “Are _you_ considering a job change?”

“Never,” Sean answered shortly, eyes fixed on that shiny white substance. “Go on then.” He nodded towards Orlando’s cock and watched. 

Casually, the other man brought his hand down again. It cupped his balls, heavy on his thigh, and just that made his cock jump again, bobbing against his belly. Orlando smirked, his tone of voice sickeningly concerned, “You got one of your midlife crises again?” 

“Can’t you keep your trap shut and just wank off in effing silence?” 

Orlando’s hand stopped and he regarded Sean with a stare that mixed lust and ice. 

“You could do a thousand other things,” he stated and gestured vaguely in Sean’s direction, at his frown and his tense body. “Don’t say this job doesn’t suck sometimes.” 

Sean stared up at him, anger furrowing his brows and heating up his need. The uncompromising edge of Orlando’s gaze didn’t falter when Sean shifted onto his side and reached out, but Orlando didn’t object when Sean’s fingers curled around his hard dick. 

End of conversation.

Sean was self centered, always had been, and acting had called to him like a siren’s song. Acting meant that his world always rightfully revolved around him, and nothing of what he did came with any costs. It was trying on lives like coats. He discarded whichever he didn’t fancy and wore the one he liked for a bit before exchanging it for another. He wouldn’t say that per se acting didn’t have consequences, he had read Aristotle and his theory on drama. But it said even more about the profession that you could shove things down people’s throats without having to swallow yourself.

He enjoyed the effortless roles, the ones that usually had his name written on them, like the villain. When you thought of something that was possible to grasp, to be made your own, then being evil was it. If there was anything logical, consequent and rational in a play, it was usually the bad guy. His motive was clear, his raison d’être was being the antagonist. Of course it was satisfying to be the biggest arse of them all, to get to murder, maul, manipulate without going to prison for it. Getting standing ovations for it, no less. 

Sean had been called narcissistic and bad-mannered in his time and another handful of questionable things, the worst of them probably being that he didn’t consider any of the above to be faults. Which was true enough. He knew when he should be polite, supportive, reassuring, he knew when compliments and arse licking were in order. He just didn’t act on it. Yeah, life would be easier if he were a little more flexible (and didn’t only bend over when there was a big dick involved), if he didn’t spend his days trying to be the (quote) biggest bastard that ever lived (unquote).

Late March they’d started rehearsing for another play – awfully late thanks to the non existent planning skills of the fucking theatre – and usually few things could make Sean happier than a big role with a pages long monologue in the third act. But too little time to learn the lines and a character he didn’t understand got in the way of bliss. He reduced Liv to tears when he told her to fucking quit altogether as she complained that her (fucking miniature supporting) role stole her time she could’ve spent with her family. His director nearly fired him when one morning Orlando showed up at work with a shiner, courtesy of Sean, after a heated private walk-through. As equilibrium went, Sean in return couldn’t sit down properly but finally got the voice for his character right.

He was not rude for the sake of it. Well, okay, _sometimes_ he was but thinking about it, that too usually was some random stupid bint’s fault who didn’t get it otherwise. But he wouldn’t shove a gran into the gutter if she asked him whether he’d help her across the street. He just didn’t want to on his deathbed, going ‘if only I hadn’t listened to…’. So he didn’t listen. 

Then there was the other part he was getting typecast for – the down-to-earth lover. Equally amusing. Because there was nothing easier than playing him. Different from real life the character of a lover in a play had a strict agenda. His purpose was so neatly lined out that it was easy-peasy to get it right. Because he was there to love, this was his purpose and that was that. In real life Sean would laugh himself silly if anyone seriously tried to tell him that loving was his reason for being.

One of his mates got engaged and of course Sean went to the party because he never missed out on free booze and free shags. As he stood at the bar and waited for another refill he watched his friend and the bride-to-be slowdance and giggle at some private joke. He compared that to his own possibilities for the evening – a red-headed future bridesmaid, the rugged bartender whose touches lingered that little bit too long, or (not to forget) his own right hand; a quiet smoke and a taped Premier League match – and yeah, on his list that kind of freedom of choice came right after acting.

He knew he missed out on things because of this. In the new play he played Orlando’s older brother and as Orlando was leaving for good he wept for him, wooden stage hard beneath his knees. He wasn’t sure whether he’d do that in reality. Didn’t know whether he was even capable of feelings this intense and point was, he definitely didn’t want to find out. So, he tried to keep as simple as possible, he still knew what _he_ felt and not just what was expected.

The villain and the lover – both, all the better if he got to be naked _and_ have a big gun, the symbolism of phallic objects never failed to entertain him – they were the most painless roles. But not the ones he liked best. Those were the ambivalent characters. The ones he couldn’t outline with two or three adjectives and that even after a year of playing them he still couldn’t characterize properly. The ones that spent their lives trying and failing and still didn’t stop trying. The ones that tried and failed and did give up. It was the ones that had the most altruistic motives and used the most questionable means that Sean liked. The ones that broke under the pressure, the ones that got up again even if they didn’t have anything to live for any longer. It were the broken, the perverted, the defect ones that Sean loved.

Like Aristotle had said, dramas were about pity and fear, yes. But Sean couldn’t care less about the audience, he was not in this for the sake of other people, he was no bleeding TV preacher. It always was about his own catharsis. He didn’t have to ask himself whether he was really feeling this, whether he really meant it. When acting he was multiplying himself and overcoming these duplicates at the same time. It was a justification of his self centeredness, his egoism. This was the core of who he was. 

The dress rehearsal for the most disorganized production of all times was just over and Sean snuffled and sat back on his heels, rather pleased with himself and the world in general. The heat of the stage lighting still made him sweat and his linen clothes were a bit too tight in some places, kneeling like that, but despite that he didn’t really feel like getting up. Basking in something quite similar to afterglow, better even since he didn’t have to get himself cum-free again. He watched a bit of the silent movie that was Bernard discussing with their director at the other end of the stage and grinned when the other actor burst into booming laughter seemingly out of nowhere. 

A hand was placed atop his head and long fingers combed through his half long hair. They twisted a little, like they usually did when Orlando was planning on taking over a kiss or just wanted to keep him close, and Sean laid his head into his neck. Orlando looked down at him, still in costume though he wore the army jacket open now. He patted Sean’s head, hand a bit too gentle to be really mocking. Sean felt the corner of his mouth twitch as he wiped tears from his cheeks that were and weren’t his own.

“Worked that like a pro,” Orlando said simply and his fingers remained pressing against Sean’s scalp. 

Orlando got it. He shared this thing that Sean could never completely explain. What _they_ shared wasn’t about this stupidly fictional version of love either, this idiotic concept that equated affection with giving yourself up for someone. Theirs was the most extreme version of vanity. Sean saw himself in Orlando, simple as that. And judging by the way Orlando looked at him right after the curtain fell, this was a mutual thing.

“Pub later?” Sean asked as he got up. Orlando merely grunted in affirmation.

 

***


End file.
